Plain
by LoweFantasy
Summary: Sequel to Cumin, BUT can be read on its own. Mai is facing the problems that come with dating an arrogant narcissist (who actually is just shy), but debunking the haunting of an old hospital used for sport by the locals might not be the best place for that. Oh, and beware of asbestos.
1. Prologue

Plain

By LoweFantasy

Prologue

I blinked up at Naru through a film of pain and Midol. _Sherlock_ played on the humble TV behind him, which I had been watching through cramps that could only be called contractions. Even if Aunt Flow couldn't give you a fever, I might as well have given myself one with how much heat I'd piled up around my abdomen.

 _'They're right about you. You're a bloody psychopath.'_

 _'High-functioning sociopath... with your number.'_

"You said you weren't sick."

"I'm not." The weedy sound of my miserable voice said otherwise. "It's just my period. I'll be back to normal in the morning."

He raised an eyebrow and crossed his arms. "I've never heard of menstruation being this painful without there being something wrong. Have you been to a doctor yet?"

I groaned. Any other man would have wilted out of existence at the word 'period.' "There's nothing wrong, and if you feel any mercy for me you'll turn that stupid light off and leave me to my misery."

"But I'm your boyfriend. Doesn't that mean I'm supposed to take care of you when you're not well?" But he turned off the living room light, plunging my tiny studio apartment back to my beautiful dark cave, with only the light of the TV and what little sunlight managed to bleed through my curtains.

"That's when you're married. 'In sickness or in health,' and all that," I said.

"Well, dating is preliminary to marriage, so I'll take it as a trial session." He unwound his arms and made his way towards the kitchen area. "Have you taken any painkillers yet?"

"Whatever could be done I've already done, so just go away."

"How much water have you drunk today?"

 _'Basically, it's a cute smile to the bride's side, a cute smile to the groom's side, and then the rings.'_

The little boy Sherlock was talking to was having none of it either.

"I don't know," I hadn't really kept track after the throwing up—which, now that I was thinking about, Naru hadn't been there for. But, like the Sherlock I was watching on TV, I wouldn't put it past him to pick up the clues and guess from there.

Another 'contraction.' Another moment of buckling and moaning. I started not to care whether Naru was there or not. I could be freaking butt naked in the street without a care if it would just make the pain go away.

Whoever came up with 'survival of the fittest' as nature's golden rule obviously hadn't thought out how it applied to humans, because I would so be saber tooth meat right now. Just how did mind-numbing cramps help me reproduce anyways? It just didn't make any sense! Maybe Naru was right and something was wrong, but if my mother and her mother could writhe like this and still have kids—though mother did have a hard time conceiving…

But if I agreed to go to the doctor, I'd have to force my brain to work in order to figure out how to pay for it, or worse, get up from the couch.

The seat cushion sank to one side as Naru sat next to me. Even such a small change in the level of my seating sent little muscles in my lower back into painful spasms.

Naru handed me a glass of water. I thanked him and took a sip from it just so he wouldn't bug me about it. After a minute or so, in which I let myself fall back into my TV watching stupor, Naru's hand felt my forehead. I didn't flinch as his fingers then trailed between my eyebrows and the corner of my mouth. Despite the pain, his touch sent my heart into breath snatching palpitations. It had been so long since he had touched me like this. Throughout the first month of our dating life, his touches and kisses had been growing steadily less, and if it hadn't been for his moments of overbearing concern for me (like now), I would have thought he'd stopped caring at all about me.

I knew I could come clean and just ask him why he rarely kissed or touched me anymore, and I knew he would answer. At the same time, I was afraid of that. What would I do if he told me he found me unattractive? Or that he simply didn't like kissing me? Or that he wanted a romantic relationship without all that disgusting spit-swapping, body grinding mess?

At that last thought, I flushed. Naru's already thin mouth frowned.

"I think I'm going to grab some stuff." He pulled back in order to pull off a manila folder I hadn't noticed before from off the coffee table. "Read through this while I'm gone, will you? And mind you don't skip anything. I want your impressions on it."

"Yes sir."

Half-way up, he hesitated, then swept down to peck a kiss on my brow. Tingles were still shooting down to my fingertips by the time he closed my apartment door behind him. I didn't know how much time passed before I switched off _Sherlock_ and opened up the folder he had left on my lap.

A picture of an old brick hospital, one that could have been built sometime between 1940 and 1960, met me on the front page. The windows had been boarded up, but underneath was a newspaper clipping about a company buying it out from the people who had been using it as a 'haunted hospital' attraction since it had been closed down thirty years previously. Apparently, they planned on renovating it into a psychiatric facility and school for nursing internships.

Beneath this was the letter from our next client, beseeching Naru to debunk the long-held reputation of haunting from the building, as no family would want to entrust their already troubled loved ones into the care of a haunted psychiatric hospital.

Another cramp attack wove through me and I bent over the folder with a whimper.

When Naru return, he set to work on boiling water in my kitchen without a word. I was half asleep with the last few pages of the case in my hands.

He came round to hand me a box of Pocky. "I read somewhere that girl's crave chocolate during these times."

I had to smile at that. "I love you."

He rocked to his other foot and sort of cocked his head so his bangs fell in front of his eyes, as I had recently found that he did when pleased that he had done something right. "So, you're thoughts on the case?"

"It's creepy as hell?"

"Impressions, Mai. Did you get anything from the picture or the building's history?"

I flipped back to the picture and squinted at it, as though that could help.

"Use to be a hospital, closed down when the new one opened up, plans to reuse but it never got funding-sorry, no. Were you expecting anything?"

He shrugged and got back up, as the pot on the stove was whistling. When he came back to my side he had a cup of tea that sent little sighs from each of my cramped muscles with its musky, thick scent.

"This should help with the pain," he said, slipping out the folder from my grasp. "Mind you, it will make you drowsy."

Understatement of the century. By the time the last drop slipped down my throat, I was out. I only woke up enough when Naru shifted to register that I had accidentally commandeered his lap for my pillow.

Yet through the limbo between consciousness and dreams, I thought I could feel his fingers caressing the lines of my face.


	2. Who Isn't Scared of Empty Hospitals?

**O.O Wow, you guys really are excited. Ok! ^o^ I'll work my hardest to get you chapters one after the other! Once a week will be the worst case scenario!**

 **After getting a rejection letter for my novel today, this totally helps me feel better. You guys are so fun! Maybe we can play a guessing game using clues in the story again. :3 I'll see what I can come up with-something cool.**

Chapter 1

"How'd they manage to keep using this place for those haunted walk-throughs with this much asbestos?" asked Takigawa, as he looked over the map we had been handed and compared it to the peeling wall paper around us.

"Asbestos is harmless if left alone," said Naru, pushing up a monitor into the newly snapped-together shelf. "So best you don't go scratching on the ceiling or taking a hammer to the floor."

"What's asbestos?" I asked.

Naru answered without breaking the rhythm of plugging together his tech. "It's a building material that was used from the 1940s to the 1970s. Easy to make, cheap, and with a high heat tolerance that made it a good fire retardant. It was used in mostly insulation, but due to its initial safety, it was used in many other building materials, including tile and ceiling coverings."

I slipped the box of microphones onto the table as I listened, frowning. "So…what's so bad about it then?"

"If disturbed from its place," said Monk, "it breaks apart into super-fine fibers that can permanently damage your lungs, including give you nigh incurable lung diseases."

I gulped and put a hand to my throat, as though I could feel tiny dust floating down my bronchial tubes. I took in the water damaged corners of the ceiling boards, the questionably stained linoleum, and the peeling green wall paper.

"And we're going to _sleep_ here?"

"You don't have to," said Naru. "There is a hotel nearby, and there's always the van."

I looked over at Lin, who was busy setting up the monitors with Naru and hooking them up to his laptop. He had been the one to sleep in the van last time. But, since there wasn't supposed to be any babies during this case, I guess I could sleep in the van.

But I shook myself. "I should stay here to help. Who knows, maybe I'll get one of those, you know, visions of mine on the place."

"Suit yourself."

"It'll be like a party!" crowed Takigawa as he wrapped an arm around my shoulders and hugged me close. "We can stay up late telling ghost stories and eat snacks and then try to sleep as we hear every creak and pop this old building's got to give."

"Oh yay. I sure love my job." I really did love my job, but the van was starting to sound more appealing by the second.

"There's nothing to be afraid of," Naru picked up another tote by the doorway and snapped it open to the wires inside. "We're here to debunk the haunting, one that has yet to really make a mark. Any reports up till now have only been the bored and possibly drunk imaginations of teenagers. All the accidents that occurred here have a reasonable explanation and the foundation is built on sturdy bedrock. So, like I said, don't go knocking down walls and you'll be fine."

That being said, I still eyeballed the wilting wallpaper and water-damaged ceiling tiles. The electricity had been turned on before we arrived, leaving the halls and rooms with a washed out, yellowed sort of coloring. Garbage had been left in the corners, along with strips of black plastic that could have been used to build the seasonal 'haunted hospital' exhibit.

Sometime after setting up base, Takigawa kicked aside a wad of it on our way to set up a camera and sensors along the west wing. "Naru has a point. If kids have been able to walk through this place every Halloween without anything happening, it's probably fine. Guess now all we have to look forward to is how he's going to prove it isn't haunted."

"Probably his reputation," I said, flinching as a large brown spider scuttled out from the disturbed plastic.

"Sounds about right. 'Here's the tests, I'm awesome, have fun.' Hey, ten bucks says Ayako will try to purge an earth bound spirit anyways."

"Aren't monks supposed to avoid gambling?"

"It's more of a game between friends. Let's say ice cream's on the line."

"No way, if you're betting on anything go all the way, I want that ten bucks."

"Oh dear, what has Naru done to my sweet little Mai-chan? Don't tell me he's broken you in?"

Dare I ask what he meant by 'broken in?' "Excuse me?"

Lucky for both of us, the boarded up, front double doors popped open and Ayako slipped through, followed by a pensive John, who immediately smiled at the sight of us.

"Good! You're already here."

"What's with the relieved voice?" asked Takigawa. "Afraid of hospitals?"

"Not hospitals, per say—"

Ayako snorted—loudly, with the back of her hand held up to her upper lip as though to hold back the sound she obviously hadn't bothered to.

"Can you believe after all we've been through none of us have never noticed?"

A cloud of pink brushed across John's nose and he moved to step around her. "Best we get on our way—"

"Needles! The kid can't even look at them without breaking out in a sweat!"

Neither Monk or I were amused. Especially at the deepening color of John's face and the awkward way he smiled and put his hand to his head.

"Jeeze, there's nothing to make a big deal out of. I don't know anyone comfortable with needles."

"But you should have seen his face when he heard it was a hospital—"

"And what are you afraid of, oh great tree priestess?" asked Takigawa with a vindictive smirk. "A bad hair day?"

"If you would excuse me…"

The quiet, cool voice was followed by Masako, who stepped out wearing her usual kimono, this one decorated with a gorgeous array of butterflies and spring flowers in various pastel shades. Along with her glossy black hair and deep blue eyes, I could still feel the sickly hot stirrings of jealousy. There was no way anyone's skin could be so perfect and blemish free, she had to have some secret.

I also didn't miss how she avoided my gaze with a sleeve to her face. When the green monster in me preened, I squashed it with a twist of guilt. How would I feel if it was Masako who had won Naru's heart and not me? This was nothing to gloat over.

Takigawa raised his eyebrows and blinked. "Wow, Ms. Hara, spring looks nice on you."

She gave him a slight bow. "Thank you. Would you be so kind as to point me to base?"

"I'll take you," I said. "Can you finish without me, Monk?"

"Sure, though I bet John would be up to helping."

"'Course I would."

I handed off the two cameras I held to John and the girls fell into stride with me. Ayako and I made small talk about the particulars, while Masako remained quiet. I couldn't help but worry that it was different from her usual taciturn silence.

At one of these stolen glances, movement in one of the few open doorways caught my eye. At the same time, Masako stopped.

"Did you see that?" I asked.

"Did you?"

Ayako looked back at us, unfazed. "Hmph, I didn't see anything."

"Of course," said Masako.

"Hold on, what's that suppose to mean? Weren't you there when I exorcised that entire hotel by myself? I got powers too, you know!"

"I said nothing." And with her usual nose-in-the-air grace, Masako continued on, the beauty of her kimono a refreshing burst of color to the peely, trashed, old-light bleached hallway.

"I swear," said Ayako, hands on her hips and painted lips thin.

But I still had my eyes to the doorway, a sense of unease curling at the pit of my stomach like a snake. I couldn't shake off the feeling that if I just looked behind the half-opened door, I'd see someone there; someone who wasn't particularly keen on being found.

But if Masako didn't say anything, there probably wasn't anything to worry about. She was the one who could see spirits and all, and if she was just being a snob she'd at least tell Naru about it.

"Mai?"

I flashed Ayako my toothiest smile. "Sorry. This place seriously creeps me out."

"Who wouldn't it creep out?"


	3. Dissertation of a Scientist's Romance

**I know I should go to bed now-I've got 9 o'clock church in the morning and I live an hour away from town-but I've just hit a really intense part of my writing and don't feel sleepy in the least.**

 **There's no one more sadistic than a muse.**

 **...and I'm hungry.**

Chapter 2

"I sense spirits here. This place isn't empty as your employer supposes."

Naru pulled back from behind the shelf of monitors, a few cables coiled around his forearms. Even Lin looked back at Masako from his laptop in interest.

I tried to ignore the tugging urge to step between the beautiful spring bloom which was Masako and my dark and handsome boyfriend, as well as the painful awareness that I had dressed in my baggiest cargo pants and a pink shirt I had owned since fifth grade. I just hadn't seen the need to dress up for a dirty run down hospital, and regretted it. I could have at least bothered to put on mascara or something, nevermind the fact that even my best try couldn't come close to celebrity Masako.

"How many?" asked Naru.

"I can't tell. They are dormant, as of yet, though Mai and I caught a glimpse of one as we were walking down the hallway. A woman, I think."

Naru glanced in my direction, as though to ask for verification, and I just shrugged. I hadn't even caught that much, but then this was Masako's area of expertise. No point trying to one up her.

"I take it you weren't able to pick up anything else?"

"No." She hesitated. "I apologize."

"Don't. This makes my job more interesting."

"And mine," said Ayako, who had been taking in the brown blotches on the ceiling boards with a wrinkled nose. "Means I didn't bring all my stuff for nothing—hey, you're not going to make us sleep here, are you?"

"I'm not going to make you do anything, though your salary from our client doesn't include hotel fees or the time spent outside of the job area."

"You've got to be joking." On seeing one of the questionably colored stains by her foot, she pulled it back. "I'm still recovering, you know. If I get sick I'm suing him and you for all you're worth."

"Noted." He ducked back behind the shelving unit. "That being said, sleeping quarters are in the room next over. There's a door connecting the rooms in the corner there, I've already had Lin air it out, though our client assures us he's had it thoroughly cleaned for our use."

"If you mean it looks the same as this wreck…"

"I'd like to see you looking as good in sixty years."

Masako snickered behind her sleeve. I just sighed. I couldn't wait until someone told Ayako that there was asbestos from floor to ceiling.

When John and Takigawa got back they were sent back out with bluetooths, since the monitors were up and running, to fine tune the angle of everything, while we girls set up all the cots in the adjoining room, which wasn't much different from the base. We set up the boy's cots along the wall shared with the base room and the girl's on the other side, though there was only two since Masako would be staying in a nearby hotel. Being famous and all, she probably wasn't as concerned as Ayako over pay.

The bathroom connected to this room was what one would usually expect in a hospital room, and looked in far better condition than the rest of the room, give or take a few hard water stains in the sink and toilet. On scaring out one of the fuzzy brown, eight-legged inhabitants of the hospital, however, Ayako let out a shrill shriek.

"That's it! Hotel! Hotel!"

"It's twenty minutes away," said Masako, who had flinched, but otherwise was unperturbed by the spider who was obviously more afraid of Ayako than she was of it.

"Don't care, there is no way I'm taking showers with pests."

"That's only one spider." I said, taking the honor to squash the poor thing with my shoe. "And if that one is going to scare you, you're never going to leave this room."

"Whatever, I'll do my job quick and get out." She turned to Masako. "Think those ghosts would take a purification?"

Masako's small mouth puckered a bit in the lightest of frowns. "I guess it wouldn't hurt. They feel more shy than anything."

"I'll be fine. Let Naru know I'll be starting on that, will you?"

With that, and another flash of hatred towards the smear of bug gut and legs on the shower floor, she left us. I moved to follow after her, but was stopped by a small word from the medium. I kept my hand on the bathroom door as I gave her my attention, hoping with all my heart she just wanted to talk about, you know, medium stuff.

"I just wanted you to know that…" she hesitated, then her eyes narrowed with resolve. "I won't congratulate you on your relationship with Naru. And if the chance arises to be with him, I will take it, but as long as it's his wish to be with you, I won't get in the way."

I was still trying to figure out how she could not get in the way if she was ready to jump on any chance to 'be with him,' as she said, when she pushed passed me to cross the sleeping room back to base. She informed Naru she was taking a walk around the hospital for more spirits as I closed the door behind me and tried to still the uncomfortable pressure in my chest. I wasn't surprised. I had even expected it. But being so upfront about it…I almost wished that Masako hadn't said anything at all, though the anticipation of the unspoken might have been just as bad.

Naru found me on the far most cot some time later, probably on his way to the bathroom. Evening sunlight coated the old green walls and speckled linoleum with amber. I had my favorite old quilt tucked around me and my knees pulled into my chest.

He didn't speak till he was standing at the corner of my cot with a hand in his pant pocket.

"Sense something? Or did Masako say something to upset you?"

I curled up my fists into the edges of quilt and said nothing. It wasn't like I could tell my boyfriend that my love rival, who made any normal girl looked like an ugly boy just by standing next to them, had sworn to not give up on him. Nor could I very well tell him of my own insecurities, not because he was my boyfriend, but because Oliver Davis simply didn't comprehend what it felt like to have an inferiority complex. Arrogant bastard.

"If you want me to leave you alone, say so."

"I don't."

"Then what's wrong? I can't help if you don't say anything."

I hesitated. Before I could think better of it, it popped out: "Am I attractive?"

He frowned and his eyebrows wrinkled just slightly. "She called you ugly?"

"No. She didn't."

"But you think you're ugly?" The skepticism in his voice wasn't flattering. It was the tone I knew all too well; the tone that called me stupidy stupid of the stupid.

"Unattractive." I was regretting saying anything at all. Not to mention the old problem of how little he touched me now a days had started crawling up from where I had buried it. "Forget it. It's stupid."

I ducked my head beneath my quilt, hoping and yet not hoping he'd be his usual aloof self and just walk away. But it only took a few moments for me to realize he hadn't gone anywhere.

Instead, a crack of gold light broke into my patch-worked haven. Naru peeled back the edge of my blanket as though peering in at something easily damaged by exposure. His face had gone back to its default cool, but his ocean-blue eyes sought mine with a soft concern.

"You're not unattractive," he said quietly. "You are beautiful."

I meant to smile. I meant to say, 'thank you.' I even meant to take those words and nail them down deep into the part of me that prickled with jealousy and fear at Masako's beauty.

"Then why don't you kiss me anymore?"

Those severe eyebrows of his rose high. "You think…what are you talking about?"

"At first you kissed me all the time," passionately, even, to the point if he had the chance, he pulled me into a private corner to explore my mouth and trail his fingers along my back and waist. Though that had stopped after a few days. "But you've been touching me less and less until you hardly do at all, and when you do it's almost like…like you don't want to."

"Like I don't want to?" His tone had warmed harshly, and in a minor jerk of his hand he dropped the edge of the blanket. Back in the shadow of my quilt I recoiled till my back hit the wall. Naru didn't leave, though, just growled low and quiet in his throat.

When the cot squeaked and wriggled with his weight, I squirmed.

"Mai…" He hesitated, as though conflicted for words. Each moment made the fear inside me grow. His nervous timbre, a tone he only ever used in a whisper and only to me, didn't help. "Mai, I _love_ you. You are…more than attractive. That's…because of that…I'm just trying to…"

I didn't catch what he next said, even though he was right in front of me. I lifted my blanket, wondering if it was in the way, to see my arrogant scientist with his shoulders hunched up, head bowed, and face hidden behind a curtain of his dark hair.

"I'm sorry, I didn't hear you. What?"

Even then, I had to hold my breath to hear his whisper:

"I'm just trying to keep you safe."

Static popped between my scalp and the blanket as I cocked my head. "From what?"

"From what else?" He hesitated. "Intimacy…the psychology and physiology of it, if not practiced monogamously, can cause lasting harm, great and small. It isn't what I want for you if…if you decide to move on. I want you to be…"

As usual, it took me a minute to piece together what exactly he was talking about. But when it did click, heat flooded to my face, budding sweat wherever my quilt touched me.

"You're keeping your distance because you're afraid of having sex with me?"

The way he flinched—more like spasmed—was nothing short of comical. Combined with the wave of relief, the whole picture overwhelmed me, and I exploded with laughter.

He lifted his chin enough to glare icy daggers at me. "This isn't funny."

"It's not!" I cried. "No, it really—ha ha—it's not that, it's just your face! Ha!"

At that, Naru reached his max. In one fluid, dignified motion, he stepped off the cot and started walking away.

"No! Wait—ha ha ha—I'm so-sorry! It's just—I was so worried—"

"I'm glad I eased your worries." Oh yeah, he was mad.

"Please don't be mad! I'm sorry, I really am!"

"Shouldn't you be doing rounds with Masako?" Now, was that irritation or humiliation giving me a job assignment? Probably both. Though to anyone else on the team he'd just sound furious.

Since I actually wanted to make up with him, not to mention it was me in the wrong this time, I thought it best to just shut up and get to that patrolling for spirits and whatnot.

Back in the yellow-lit hallways, passing piles of litter and black tarp, his words kept playing through my head till my cheeks hurt with the force of my smile. At one point a giggle escaped me, and I had to slap myself, because relieved or not, if I kept on like this I'd turn into a real perv. What girl gets so giggly over a boy confessing that he was worried about having premarital sex with her? If anything, it was sweet. Beyond sweet.

"Psychological and physiological harm," I said to myself, unable to stop the grin. "If he gets any cuter I'm going to die."

In the back of my attention, I listened to the words being echoed back at me. Empty hospitals had to be the creepiest thing on the planet. It didn't take someone like me or Masako to imagine that someone was listening in behind the doors.


	4. Ghost Dreams of Being a Wall

**I need to learn how to make Thai food. I spend too much money going to a restaurant** **to get it.**

 **Anyhoo, let me know what you think so far! Pretty please! I'd so love to hear it.**

Chapter 3

 _Small. Small. Smaller yet. I had to be small; become the corner, become the wall. The door would open, but I'd be flat, I'd be small. It could bump into my toes, but no one would know. By now the floor was warm, and only my feet felt numb anymore. But she'd come in, call me cold—no, I was small. Small, small, just part of the wall._

 _Let my hair suck in light. Let my lungs breathe out silence. Let my limbs melt into my flat body, no more breasts, no more hips, no more waist or nose or chin._

 _Small, small, just part of the wall._

 _And let no one ever find me._

I woke up with the afterimage of light shining through strands of hair burned into my mind's eye. Morning sunlight shone onto the amber hair of Ayako, who had changed her mind about staying on seeing she'd have to leave me all alone with four men (or rather 'a pathetic excuse for a monk, a rock, a naïve priest, and a narcisstic brat'). Not to mention she had yet to hear from Masako that her general shrine priestess purification had worked (Naru had pretty much ignored her when she walked past in her uniform and set up her shrine in the entry hall).

After waking up from a dream that left my arms and legs cold, I couldn't be more glad. I didn't want to vanish into a wall, where no one would find me. I didn't want to be so alone.

Ayako rolled over with a groan. "Curtains…damn it, what time is it?" She blinked out the sleepies and frowned on meeting my eye. "You okay?"

"Dream," I said.

"I take it not a nice one."

I shook my head and tucked my hands into my armpits. How'd I get so cold?

"What was it about? It might have to do with the case."

As I knew well. I searched my mind for words, but couldn't quite find them. "This one was weird. I didn't really see much but…some light through my hair. Maybe a floor. Mostly it was just hearing all these thoughts about wanting to be small, I don't know."

"Small?"

"Yeah. Or was it flat? There was something about becoming part of a wall." I shook myself and sat up, my blankets puddeling at the end of my cot. "That's probably not any help now. Though Masako did say something about feeling like there were spirits hiding—no, it was dormant, she said."

Ayako nodded and yawned, though when her jaw came closed her lips were pursed. Across from us, Naru's, John's, and Lin's cots were empty, though Takigawa's tuft of honey blond hair stuck out from above a lump of sleeping bag and cotton blanket. We decided to let him sleep while we took turns with the shower and got ready for the day.

At base, Naru was ready with a cup of coffee. He didn't look like he entirely enjoyed it, but it wasn't like there was a working kitchen in this place, right? And with all the asbestos, he probably wouldn't want to risk me disturbing some insulation or accidentally setting the whole place in flame.

"Mai, there's an electric kettle in the tote at the end of the table. Make me some tea."

I almost tore off my shoe and threw it at him. "Can't you bother with a please?"

He grunted. "Please."

An 'I love you,' or even a nice, 'sleep well?' would have been too much to ask for. If Naru was such a crabby morning person, why'd he get up so damn early? It wasn't like anyone was making him.

There also happened to be a heating plate and some basic, non-perishable breakfast foods in the tote as well. Just as I was pulling out a bag of bagels, the door opened and John came in, a plastic bag in one hand and milk in the other.

"Would anyone like some eggs and bacon?"

"Would I ever!" I crowed, momentarily forgetting about the tea.

"Yes please," added Ayako, who was more than happy to take the bag off of John's hands.

It wasn't till we had our first panfull of scramble eggs going that Naru reminded me of the tea, which I got to right away.

Lin came in later. We offered him some eggs, but he refused. Takigawa, however, came in nose first and plunged into the breakfast efforts, which made things more than a little crowded, as there were only two heating plates, one pan, and one frying pan.

Once there was something of a calm, however, Naru finally turned from his monitors and headphones to level his eyes on me. For a moment I got the crazy hopeful thought that he'd say something sweet, but his next words reminded me that he probably was still upset over me laughing at him the day before.

"Any visions?"

I swallowed a mouthful of eggs. "Um, just a weird one about wanting to be small or part of a wall. My thoughts, or rather, the words I heard were kind of scrambled, maybe even like some modern poetry."

"Can you recite to me what you remember?"

I did, to the best of my abilities, but was starting to think that it hadn't been a dream of any significance, but rather one of the garden variety dished up by your subconscious because it had nothing better to do while you slept.

"What about you?" asked Takigawa. "Any of the tech pick up anything?"

"No. Though we did get some interesting sounds from the west wing. Lin?"

Lin, who had his headphones on, flicked the switch to the sound from headphones to speakers, typed a bit, and brought up a brief sound clip. At first, it sounded like ordinary white noise. But then a beat picked up to the fuzz, almost like—

"Footsteps," said John.

"So there is something here," said Ayako, tapping her bottom lip with a plastic spork.

"It makes one wonder for how long and why, but that is none of our concern." Naru crossed his legs and leaned an elbow onto the table. "Our task is to verify that there are not any lingering spirits here. Thus, we need to figure out where these spirits are and to exorcise them as quickly as possible. Hopefully, we won't hit any snags along the way. When Ms. Hara gets here I want Takigawa to accompany her and Mai to see if we can identify any of the spirits here for an exorcism."

I would have choked if I had any food in my mouth. "What?! You expect me to do the same as Masako?"

"No, but it wouldn't hurt to try. Besides, spirits usually find their way to you on our cases anyways. Maybe we could hurry it along."

"Well gee, that's comforting." Because I had so loved them finding me all those other times. Let's see: dragged into a well, get knocked out by fumes, get knocked out by spiritual whatever presence, nightmares, visions, floors and ceilings falling through, blood—oh yes, lots of blood. Oh, and wind sickles, because what were deadly driftwood gods without wind sickles?

So much fun.

And dare he have that spark of amusement in his beady, beautiful, smart-ass eye? Forget that the others were chortling behind me, Naru had no right to laugh at me. He had brought me into this, after all.

Nevertheless, when Masako finally made it to our breakfast party wearing yet another spring kimono (this one sky blue, hemmed with lotuses, and scattered with goldfish), the whole group tagged along with us to see what would happen while Lin and Naru kept watch at base. Takigawa had a walkie-talkie on his hip to keep us in touch.

The hospital consisted of a sort of two rung ladder shape, with an overgrown courtyard in the center containing a fountain filled with algae and frog spawn. The two rungs of the ladder were called North and South halls, while the longer, thicker polls were West and East. Whether they faced the four points exactly no one bothered to ask. The North and South halls were shorter and smaller that the West and East, and consisted of what could have been the administration offices and pharmacies when the hospital was still in operation. The many rooms for patients and whatever else a hospital needed made up the West and East halls. The emergency room made up the far most tip of the West wing, and in which we were keen to look into last.

Takigawa and John opened door after door, each on one side of the hall, so Masako and I could take turns peering inside. Through all this, Ayako watched from a safe distance, making comments now and then about her own parent's hospital and how national medical laws had become a pain in some ways since the old buildings time.

"—you know they use to think blood was harmless? It wasn't considered a biohazard waste and, while doctors knew it was stupid to care for other patients with contaminated tools, they'd just hand off bloody sheets and gowns to janitors like muddy clothes."

"Yeah, I've heard of that," said Takigawa, brushing aside an empty grocery bag from the doorway he had just opened. Inside was one of many generic patient rooms, with empty aluminum beds, bare curtain rails on the ceiling, and a closed, adjoining bathroom. "My great uncle use to tell stores of an old industrial laundry mat he use to work at. One time he heard some rattling in the dryer and pulled out a whole set of teeth."

"And here I am just wondering why someone had to get all their teeth taken out," I said, peering around Takigawa to the room. I examined the same, peeling green wallpaper, the boarded up window, the mouse droppings, the trash, the spiders…just the same general, creepy feeling. I eyed the adjoining bathroom and winced at what could be inside. The previous bathrooms had proven to be cleaner than I expected and in much the shame shape as our own, but I still expected to open a door to a nightmarish spider nest from an Indian Jones set.

Once I had had my fill of a creepy room, Masako and I would cross the hall to take turns examining each other's rooms. The others got to signal to move on whenever we did.

"I keep expecting to find blood stains or something," said John, who had started out pale and pensive, but who had calmed considerably after the dozenth boring, decaying, but mostly empty room.

"Please," said Ayako. "Even then they had their cleaning procedures. This place has probably been bleached from head to toe every day of its life."

"You'd think it'd smell like it then," I said, sneezing as I took a whiff and caught dust instead.

"Now that you mention it, I can't really place the smell—beneath the usual old building smell, that is," Takigawa said.

His sneakers squeaked on the linoleum as we moved to the next set of doors. One of these turned out to be a utility closet, which, though not being my spider hell, had several pairs of scaly, worm like tails and furry behinds daring from the sudden light. I bowled into Takigawa in my retreat.

He caught my shoulders as I bounced against him. "Woa, there, you okay?"

"Rats!" I squeaked. "I've never seen them outside pet stores. They're huge!" That's it. I was so sleeping in the van tonight.

Ayako must have been thinking the same thing. "You've got to be kidding me! And they want to refurbish this place?"

"Rats are easily taken care of," said Takigawa, shutting the door without bothering to ask if Masako wanted to look. "It's the asbestos that's the real problem."

She made a noise between a grunt and a squawk. "Asbestos? And we've been _sleeping_ here?!"

"I see her."

All of us turned to Masako, who had stepped into the room enough to see behind the door, which opened inwards. John stood in the doorway with his hand still on the handle. She held a lotus and goldfish speckled sleeve to her mouth.

We approached cautiously as she spoke; "I can just see her outline. She's tucked between the door and the wall, and I can see through her. It's almost like she's two-dimensional. I don't get the feeling she's asleep, but she isn't aware of her surroundings either."

By the time I stood at Masako's side, hand on the doorway, I thought I could feel something like déjà vu tickling the back of my mind. I couldn't see anything, but through a thread like jerk in my gut, I knew someone was there.

"That sounds like my dream," I said. "Small. In the wall, till she becomes the wall, so no one will ever find her."

Masako nodded. "Seeing her now, it makes sense that nothing major has ever happened here. But if she's so withdrawn from this world, why hasn't she crossed over yet? Or even faded?"

"Faded?" asked John.

"It's when a ghost is weak, or rather, has weak sentiments towards what they left, but they aren't particularly keen on leaving anyways," said Takigawa behind us. "It's like they're stuck at the crossroads. They don't tend to stay there long."

Masako's perfect eyebrows puckered above her sleeve, and I could imagine her small mouth plumped up like a flower as she pursed them in thought. "She's…almost glowing. I can't believe that she hasn't noticed us yet. Perhaps she chooses not to."

The walkie-talkie crackled. " _Did you find something? You've stopped."_

Oh yeah. We had one of the hall's camera's pointed right at us. I glanced back at it as Takigawa responded.

"Yeah, we did. Just one, possibly the girl that they sensed before."

"It is her," said Masako, her eyes still on that spot behind the door. I could see her footsteps in the dust on the floor.

 _"Is an exorcism possible?"_ asked Naru.

My gaze trailed around the edges of her kimono to the rest of the room. No black plastic, trash bags, or debre littered the corners, besides the occasional fallen peel of wall paper. But then, like the others, it was dark due to the window being boarded up, so there could be something further in. I flicked at the light switch, but nothing happened. It hadn't been the only room we found with a burnt light bulb, but my stomach clenched.

"I think so," said Masako, bringing down her sleeve. "I don't sense any aggressiveness. I believe she's simply been here in the dark and quiet so long she's forgotten she's dead. Let me talk to her first."

And Masako did, even crouching down to coo to her as though to a cat, explaining she was dead and that she could find peace now. My eyes had adjusted to the light enough to see that the black plastic I had missed was hanging in shreds from the curtain rail in the ceiling. On closer inspection, I realized it wasn't plastic, but fabric. Someone had forgotten to take these one down.

The clenching in my stomach increased.

 _Small. Small. Become the wall._

Masako sighed and stood. "She's not responding, but I don't think she's any harm. I suspect being exorcised would do her good."

 _No one find me. Please, no one find me. Numb feet, cold—small small—_

" _Good. Takigawa, would you do the honors?_ "

"I did bother to dress for this occasion," he said, wrapping his prayer beads around his hands and making the first sign. Any playfulness had vanished as his usual seriousness before spiritual work took place. It was only in these moments that I could believe he was meant for the job of a monk.

 _Let my hair suck in light. Let my lungs breathe out silence, silence, nothing._

"We should leave," I breathed.

Masako, who was nearest to me, look askance at me. "What did you say?"

Takigawa switched places with John, who had slipped out his bottle of holy water just in case. "Best you girls get behind me, just in case."

"Something's not right. We should leave her alone. She's not doing anything, right?" I stepped out with Masako anyways.

" _Spirits can change over time,"_ buzzed the walkie-talkie. " _And we're not meant to stick around after we die, Mai, you know that."_

And since I had no other reason other than the tightening in my gut to say so, I bit my lip and took my place out in the hall with John on one side and Masako on the other, with Ayako coming up from behind to casually rest her forearm on my head.

"She'll be okay," Ayako said kindly, her fingernails soft against my scalp.

John also gave me a comforting smile. "She'll be even better. I bet there's loads of people waiting for her."

"Yeah…" Of course. Why in the world would I have suggested otherwise?

Monk begun his chant, eyes closed, fingers in place, and framed by the shadows of the room. The yellowing light of the old fluorescent lights throwing the shape of the doorway over his purple robes.

An ache tightened behind my eyes, and for a blink the blackness around monk seemed to grow.

 _No—small—nothing at all. Wall wall, no knees, no breasts, no liver, no insides-_

Monk lifted his beads, shifting to the sign of the Immoveable One.

The ache in my head exploded. I could see the light now, shining through strings of hair—

Masako started to scream. In the next heartbeat, I realized it wasn't just her, but me as well.


	5. Open Up

**R &R, fwends. **

Chapter 4

My world didn't shift away, but became warped as I viewed it through the overlapping of bodies. Green scrubs, masks, and glimmering goggles reached for me with plastic hands, their words beating against me like a rush of water. The yellow lights blazed white, bleaching everything as it had been or never could be; clean and featureless.

Ayako reached for me—through the film—through the layers of green and words. Her mouth moved, but their voices overcame hers.

"-better—"

"—this is all normal—"

"—everything will be okay—"

"Just rest. Rest. Let your body heal—"

"Let it do its job—"

"—soon you'll feel all better."

A flash of pain and color and a scalpel had sliced across my abdomen, which popped open like a drawer to reveal the great worm which was my intestines curled within the slime and scarlet goo of my body.

My stomach had been cut open, and I saw the potion of white and egg from my breakfast, throbbing as the organ struggled to continue its work and vomit at the same time.

But I couldn't throw up. They had cut those muscles too.

Ayako had her hands on my arms, but her eyes weren't to my exposed guts, but to my face, her eyes wide with concern.

"I'm going to die!" I screamed. "Help me! Hold it in!" Hold in my guts—stop the blood—someone call an ambulance—

But she just looked confused. I managed to pick out three of her words: "-there's nothing wrong—"

How could she not see? How could she—

"It's normal," said one of the doctors.

"It's okay, it will pass."

"Just hold it up with paperclips—don't let your acid spill—"

The piercing scream of Masako broke through, and I jerked to the side. She was there too, surrounded by layers upon layers of the green and white scrubs, blood on her wrists and ankles. One had bent over to pluck at her eye—or was it her mouth?

John looked just as confused as Ayako. Takigawa remained in the room, fighting to stay focused on the exorcism. I knew that he'd keep going, as it was key to finish. All would be okay when he finished.

But I could feel my guts—could feel the cold air on the great worm and throbbing flesh bowl in the drawer of my abdomen. I hurt, but the real pain would be coming, once the shock wore down.

"Shock," murmured a doctor.

Masako was on her knees, screaming, screaming, blood down her face—

I lifted my fingers. If I couldn't make it—there was still time for her—

" Rin Pyou Tou Sha-"

"Mai, what are you doing?!"

"-Kai Chin Retsu Zai—"

"Stop her—"

" _Zen!_ "

Masako's body was thrown to the ground, but so also were the images. In a horrid twist of something like vertigo and being swirled in a barrel, the doctors shifted from her and whirled towards me, layering one before another like transparent cards.

But Masako wasn't screaming anymore. Nothing reached for her. I only prayed my power hadn't hurt her too greatly.

They closed in, all painful, too-bright light and hands, fingers flickering with scalpels and needles and string. Masks and goggles and plastic hands filled my vision. I could see their eyelashes framed about their eyes, so human, so inhuman, for I could see each lash down to the cuticle and then deeper to the blobs of cells.

A hand reached up into my chest. My lungs hitched; fingers poked each inner sack to push out its air.

 _Small, no! Small small, a wall—A WALL!_

They then proceeded to show me in just how many ways I was mortal.

And the pain set in.


	6. Stand In Holy Places

**I want peons. I'm not sure what they're suppose to do, but I want peons so I can call people my peons and laugh like an evil overlord. Will you be my peon? Or I could be yours, either way, 'cause I can always do my evil laugh at something else, like pouring salt on a banana slug...or writing a really cruel cliffhanger or heart-wrenching scene. )**

Chapter 5

I came to with the smell of bile in my nose and blood in my mouth.

I had to relearn to breathe. No thought could form in my mind, because it was nothing but a mess of turmoil and animalistic terror.

But my body remembered for me, and before I knew it I could register the white tiles, the paper charms taped to the shower walls, and the blond head bowed at the edge of the porcelain tub I sat in, filled with luke-warm water to the brim.

John crossed himself, and I registered the burning pain that had become my body, as though I had overexerted or pulled every muscle. I blinked and saw Ayako, Takigawa, and Naru, pale and crowded in the small hospital bathroom. Another rasping breath told me my throat had been turned to sandpaper and that everyone was almost as soaked as I was. Only the paper charms seemed to be untouched.

The priest looked up and met my eye. On contact with the blue of his gaze, a calm spread over my mind, and the first thought dug itself out from the layers of wreckage.

 _It wasn't real._

"Mai?"

At John's tentative, but blessedly familiar voice, I burst into tears.

I had nothing to say. I could say nothing. But I had never been so relieved to be fully dressed in an overfilled bathtub and surrounded by my friends who looked as though they had walked through a typhoon.

Naru pushed his way past Takigawa and dropped besides John. His knuckles went white as he gripped the side of the tub. His usual fringe of bangs had vanished into the wet mass which was now his hair, giving me a rare view of his naked forehead. "Mai, can you hear me?"

In answer I threw my soaked arms around him and buried my face into the crook of his neck. The memories had already started to fade, almost as though being washed away by the soothing touch of the water. My sobs came out croaking and raspy through my torn vocal chords, but I cried his name anyways like a mantra that could scare away the last of the nightmare.

Naru, never the hugging type, still wrapped one arm across my shoulders and squeezed.

"Oh, Mai," John put his hand to my head. It trembled.

"It worked! She's okay!" cried Ayako out the doorway to whoever waited outside.

Takigawa just wilted onto the toilet, eyes wide, pale as death.

"Mai-chan," he croaked. "I'm so sorry. God, I'm so, so sorry."

And then I remembered. "M-Masako?"

"Has some nasty cuts on her side and arm, but otherwise is fine." Ayako hesitated. "She said you saved her."

"What ha-happened?" it hurt to talk, and my voice didn't want to.

"The girl I exorcized possessed you and Masako, somehow," said Takigawa, who propped up his head with his arm on the sink besides him. "She said…she says she pulled you into…into her, or something. Not exactly see what she saw, but more than she saw, or something like that. But that she brought other spirits, or woke up other spirits, or maybe there weren't spirits at all—"

"As you can tell, she's also very confused," said Ayako with a weak frown.

"So, why am I…" my voice cracked and I had to suffice with pulling back from Naru and looking down at the tub of water I sat in.

"Every time I exorcized her, she'd just go back in," said John, his hand slipping down to my arm as though afraid that if he broke contact with me I'd fall apart. "I even tried to keep my crucifix on you, but you…"

"You were flailing about like a maniac," said Ayako. "I'm sure you can taste the aftermath. You should have seen his face-you threw up all over Lin!"

I groaned and buried my face in my hands, then thought better and instead went to washing it off. Naru and John pulled back to give me space. The water I spat out ran pink with blood. By the feel of it, I had bitten my tongue, and I wouldn't be surprised if I had torn at something in my throat as well—probably through screaming.

I shivered and sunk down into the water. John took that chance to continue.

"We tried other things such as the charms, but she'd just fight her way back in, though after you did the nine cuts on Masako she left her alone, but we couldn't very well use the cuts on you. Thus Ayako and Takigawa put up wards in the shower stall and around the tub to keep her out once I exorcized her."

"Water?" I lifted a wet hand.

"It's holy water now." Takigawa smiled weakly in a sad attempt at a joke.

"Huh?"

"We double teamed," said Ayako. "We put up the wards and John consecrated the water. The moment he finished his prayer, you came to."

And if I was flailing about as they said, that would also explain their own soggy states.

I rinsed out my mouth again. The water was less pink coming out.

"I'll get something for that," said Ayako, heading out the door.

"What can you do when you bite your tongue?" I said hoarsely, having swallowed enough water to at least oil my voice.

"Gauze, pressure, the usual. Haven't you ever had a tooth pulled at the dentist?" said Takigawa.

"No."

"Woo, what I wouldn't give for your genetics," said John. "I'll go get you some tea. I'm sure Lin could think of something to help with the pain, or at least calm you."

John's wet priest robe flopped against his legs as he stood and also left.

Which left me with Takigawa and Naru to answer my sticky question.

"So…" I let my fingers explore over my body as I talked, both to check for wounds and to verify that I really was my own. "Can I get out now or do I have to…?"

"We'll probably need Masako to verify that the spirit's gone back to sleep, right Naru?"

"Yes." Naru's eyes hadn't left from a spot somewhere around my shoulder. He had yet to look at me.

"I have an idea for a ward that Ayako and I can make that could protect you, but it takes time to make."

"And if it doesn't work you can just drop me in the tub again," I said, trying to lighten the mood. "This actually is pretty useful, though. If we can figure out why she's so drawn to me and Masako—"

"What did you see?" asked Naru abruptly.

I had made very good progress in wiping the experience from my mind, but no one could ever forget all of it. Before thinking otherwise I had recoiled from Naru and to the back of the bathtub.

Takigawa jumped to my defense in a breath. "Crap, man, give her some time to recover first, or at least get some color back to her face!"

"Don't tell me how to do my job," he said. "If we're to uproot the spirit sooner than later I need to hear what Mai saw."

"Can't you just ask Masako—"

"Two accounts, two people, and Masako was possessed for mere seconds thanks to Mai's quick thinking." And with that, he lifted his face and met my eyes for the first time.

I understood. If he was to stop this from happening again, he needed to know as much as possible. This was my boss before me, not my boyfriend.

And it wasn't like my empty, rattling self could feel much more than terror anymore. Nonetheless, I took a big gulp of air before beginning with the scraps I could remember. As I spoke I saw the viscera of my body and the empty comfort of the doctors, the scalpels, the hands, the eyes rimmed with mountain high lashes—

"Stop!"

Takigawa had jumped to his feet. I blinked and noticed for the first time that Ayako had stepped in with the first aid kid hugged to her chest. Her mouth was open and trembling.

"That's enough. You should have heard what you need." Monk even gripped Naru's shoulder, as though ready to physically drag him out if he needed to.

But Naru wasn't looking at me anymore, but back to that point above my shoulder.

"Yes," he said. "You're right. How about you get started on that ward now? The water's already cooled."

I heard, but I didn't listen. My insides quaked with icy acid and I couldn't stop shivering. Tears mingled with the water on my face, squeezed out by pain and memory. My body had exerted itself past shivering.

"Monk," it came out as a whimper. "Monk, I'm sorry."

"What the hell for?"

Naru got up. He wouldn't look at me. I wanted to reach for him, cry for him to pull me out of the tub and tell me why he couldn't stand the sight of me, then knowing why. I had just gone through an episode of possessed spasms, throwing up, screaming, bleeding—who wouldn't be disgusted?

"For…making you uncomfortable."

Naru walked out, hands curled at his sides.

"Don't be ridiculous," said Ayako, who took Naru's place by the tub. "Open wide, and I want to see your arms too, poor things. I think you might've scratched your stomach too."


	7. Need for One

**Man, guys, I've been having it so rough. I've had panic attack after panic attack the last two days. I just want a little peace but those stupid voices keep telling me stupid things, like how I'm not doing any good or am a failure or lazy or...you get the idea.**

 **I hope none of you have to deal with an anxiety or depression disorder. But if you do, you've totally got a friend in me, and my stories go out to you. Even if they only give you relief for the short time it takes you to read them, that relief is the real reason why I write. Stories never fail to give me a much needed breather.**

Chapter 6

It took Monk and Ayako the better part of the day to create the charm, as well as water-proofing it so it could be on my person constantly. Masako verified that the ghost had subsided for a time, but to where she didn't know, so Naru, John, and she went through the hospital to try and locate her. Yasu was called up in the middle of his classes to research past patients of the hospital, or any stories that might stand out, and Lin was kept at the monitors and recorders for any leads he could direct the searching gang.

And I sat in the tub turning into Yoda. Eventually the water did get cold, and since consecrating water to holiness did take some effort, I just had to put up with it. By the time Takigawa and Ayako could pull me out, not only had I wrinkled into oblivion, but I swore I was turning blue with cold. Combine that with overtaxed muscles and legs being bent too long and I ended up having to be supported by them to the toilet, where they doused me in towels. The charm they taped onto my upper back. Since I didn't start seeing my organs again, we supposed it worked.

I hadn't felt like eating all day, and Monk and Ayako pressed me for an appetite. I meekly asked for some soup (that should be easy enough to swallow, right?), which, to my embarrassment, sent Monk running. That gave Ayako time to help me shake and tremble my way into the warmest pair of PJs she could find, which ended up being Monk's grey sweats, so it drowned me.

"You look like a baby elephant," she said with a snicker.

I would have stuck out my tongue if I weren't afraid my chattering teeth would bite it off.

The soup came, I sipped at it, managed to half finished it, then filled the rest of the empty space with milk. Takigawa was just happy I ate, and he couldn't get enough of me being eaten alive by his sweats either.

"Careful, Monk," growled Ayako. "Or Naru's going to hear you."

"No he won't. Besides, Mai's going to marry me one day anyways, there's no way I could pass up on seeing something this cute first thing in the morning!"

He got a crack in the cranium from Ayako for that. For once, I didn't mind so much. Even though I knew he was joking, it still made me a bit uncomfortable.

John checked in on me after seeing Masako back to the hotel. He held my chin to see my eyes, then traced the cross on me and murmured a prayer before taking off his own wooden crucifix and slipping it over my head.

"Just in case," he said softly, and his bottom lip quivered as though to say something else, but he changed his mind and left it at that.

Before I was ready for it, before I had even faced the cold truth that there was nothing I could do to stop the day from ending, nighttime came. As requested, the others helped me set up my bed in the van (Naru kept his back to us and his eyes to a book as we carried out sleeping gear), but when the team said their goodnights and left to bed, the lonely van seemed much more scary and cold than the cot-filled room I was about to leave.

As I stood at base, waiting for my courage to return, the smell of old wall-paper, dust, and empty space clogged my mouth. Just beyond it, I thought I could taste the latex of gloves and the breath of antiseptics. My stomach clenched, threatening to expel the soup and milk I had labored to swallow.

"Breathe," I whispered to the door to the hallway. I opened my ears to the calming whirring of the monitors behind me. Lin had gone to check a camera, leaving me alone with the blue-white glow of the screens.

But my stomach didn't unclench. Fearing I might hurl, I mince-walked to one of the chairs and sank down, digging my hands into my hair and down my face. Deep breaths did nothing to quell the shaking in my bones, or the sense of inescapable doom reaching over me in a smothering tarp of panic.

I didn't want to throw up. I didn't want to make my friends worry more. I wanted to be strong. I didn't want to repulse Naru anymore than I had.

When the door squeaked, I jumped, my nerves hyper extended and raw. Rather than Lin, though, Naru stood in the doorway from the cot room, dressed in his black satin jammies with a towel over his head. When he frowned so deep it cut into his face, I looked down to find the quiet tapping had been my heels jittering on the floor, up and down and up and down. I clenched my knees hard and forced my feet down, but the shaking just shifted deeper.

Just as I decided to flee to the bathroom and give in to the hurl, Naru dropped his towel and closed the spaced between us. Without a word, and with more strength than I expected, he scooped me up into his arms, took my chair, and settled me in his lap like a child. I only managed to get his stuttered name out before he tucked my head against his neck and pressed his face to my hair. As he breathed in deep of my smell, I breathed in deep of his, and my stomach relaxed. The nausea abated.

He didn't say anything, though if his arms went any tighter he might bruise me. He didn't even move an inch when Lin came back and took his place back in front of the monitors, which said something as Naru was strictly against any forms of PDA. That arrogant, prideful part of him demanded it.

And something held there, in his presence, fed the starving, raw part of my soul that caused my tremors and my shakes. I nearly cried from his touch. I had needed this. I had needed this so bad.

"I thought you were disgusted by me," I managed to push out.

"Moron," he said against my head.

My shivers didn't go away completely, nor did the tightness in my gut relax all the way, but I was more than happy to stay where I was. After a few minutes, Lin got up and made me a cup of his calming tea, which Naru let go of me enough to take. I expected Lin to give Naru one of his covert, mocking glances that I had missed for the first year of our acquaintance, but he only had his attention for me, along with a soft, sympathetic smile.

"My shiki have us guarded," he said to me. "Nothing will touch you tonight."

"Could you get a blanket from off my bed?" said Naru.

Lin nodded, left, and came back with a downy grey comforter, and before I could move to slip out of Naru's lap without spilling tea, Lin flung the blanket over the both of us and tucked the ends underneath my arms. Naru flashed him his first disapproving look. Lin just smirked and went back to his seat with a creak of faux leather and metal.

Calm washed over me more thoroughly than a wave on a beach. Naru held me tight, lavender and something like Chai spice wafted from my tea, and instinctually, I knew no nightmares would be reaching for me tonight.

"Let me know when...your legs start falling a…sleep…" The tea was gone. I thought I might be hungry, but my eyes wouldn't stay open, and the effort to find something to eat never sounded so unobtainable.

"Hush." He took the cup from me, then rewrapped his arm around my waist.

"I don't need to be coddled."

"Of course."

"…I'm fine. I can do my…my job."

"Yep."

I half-heartedly slapped his face—but it ended up as a weird little pat that hugged his head to mine.

"Don't patronize me," I muttered.

"Then stop being a dummy and go to sleep."

"Bed's in van."

His arms tightened then moved to adjust the blanket. The downy pockets of the comforter rustled and filled in the spaces around me, till even the blue light of the monitors had been swallowed. Naru's lips brushed against my temple and ear, not quite a kiss; more than a caress.

"I'll take care of you."

In the darkness, lights throbbed into being. Each glowed like a Christmas light through a foggy window pane; clouds of blue and white, drifting through the gloom. It was a common beginning for my dreams. Which meant…

Sure enough, Gene stood not far from me, expression open as his brother's never could be with an easy smile. He stood lax, with his hands open at his sides.

"Heard you had a rough experience," he said stepping towards me.

I returned his smile the best I could, but lying, even through movement, was difficult on this plain, so the muscles of my face merely spasmed and betrayed me. His own smile vanished and, without warning, he swept me up into his arms. A warmth constricted around my heart, and in a small way, I worried that I might be cheating on Naru by allowing this. At the same time, I couldn't pin down how it could be.

Then another, a bit more alarming thought darted through my mind and I pulled away. "Wait, how are we speaking? I thought Monk and John warded me against spirits, you know, like that barrier at the Kuman Thong mansion."

"Aye, but warding a human is a bit more transitory than warding a wall. Not to mention we mediums have ways of reaching each other, whether we mean to or not. It's part of our nature."

"Our nature? Wait, a medium? Like Masako? You've got to be joking, I can't do what she does. She can see spirits all the time, I just, I don't know, see them in spurts. And she can turn it off like a switch."

He shook his head, his hands still on my arms, as real as if he were alive, and warmed by his good-nature. "You are a lot more raw than her, and…have talents in different areas, such as astral projection and what we are doing here."

"Not to mention I can't channel people—which I'm _so_ not jealous of. I think I've had enough of possession for a lifetime."

His grin returned, although rather wryly, and he nodded. "But don't ask me the details. I may be smarter and more charming, but I am by no means a scientist."

I agreed with that, which pleased him and he let his hands slide away from my arms. From about us came a distant keening sound that warbled like a siren across the sea. I perked and looked about us.

"What is that?" I asked.

"It's a sound that haunts this place. I'm surprised you're just now hearing it. No matter where I go, I can't escape it."

"Oh-will you be okay? It isn't hurting you, is it?"

His gaze to me softened, if it could anymore than it already was. Again I was reminded of the inability to lie on this plain and could feel warmth gathering on the back of my neck.

"I'm already dead, Mai."

"Yeah, but you haven't moved on yet either, and the longer you stay the more, you know, your soul will get hurt or start absorbing your surroundings or…something—damn it, Naru's right, I really am a moron."

"No, you're right." And like he did whenever he warned me of danger, he grew grim. "I don't know why…I thought it would be so straightforward. So many die and find themselves on the other side. I haven't even glimpsed where I am to go."

"Then what's it like? I mean, if you can't see where you are to go, what do you even do?"

"Time doesn't exist here like it does for you, or rather, my perception of it comes and goes. I have no heartbeat to count it out, and no flesh separates one train of thought from another. One blink I am drifting in…here, the next I'm with you, talking, your surroundings comprehended and observed in an instant. But there is one constant."

"What?"

"My brother," he glanced to the side, his gaze growing distant, as though to see something I could not. "His presence…is like background noise to my existence, one which I can never reach or turn off. Through the nothing, where he is and what he is drifts through me, like waves on the shore. Though with each withdrawal of the wave I have to remember I'm not looking into a mirror…" An upsurge of energy seemed to course through him and he focused back at me with renewed attention. "I am not my brother, or he me. We do not share a soul. Why must I be kept back by him?"

"What do you mean?"

But Gene's figure had already vanished, swallowed up with the lights in the darkness. The high, wavering keen followed me out of unconsciousness and to the very moment where I recognized the back of my eyelids.


	8. The Protected and The Deaf

**Thank you for all your kind reviews. :) Especially my guest reviewer, WhiteDragon2645. I know it can be befuddling** **trying to say the right thing to someone who has a mental illness when you don't. So the fact you were kind enough to say anything at all and to encourage me really touched me. Thank you.**

 **And to Peaches: thank you for telling me my stories are awesome. It really does help. I get lots of rejection letters on my novels that I send out to be published, and sometimes I get reviewers who pretty much say my stories are boring, lame, and flat, so it's nice to be told that my story has entertained or delighted someone.**

 **Same goes to all the rest of you reviewers who have done the same. Please know I think of you often, and fondly, and am grateful to be able to tell you stories. I will always be honored.**

Chapter 7

Next thing I knew I was waking up in a corner of base on s mess of bedding. Someone had brought it all back in from the van in the night, made up a nest of it, and set me down to sleep like a small child. The thought both irked and warmed me.

And sitting at the monitors, dressed, preened, and ready for the day before even God himself (as usual), was Naru.

I groaned and rubbed my eyes of dust as I sat up. "Do you sleep at all?"

"You've seen me sleep. Tea, please." He didn't even look at me, nor did his fingers miss a beat while scrolling through footage.

"Jeeze, you could let me wake up first."

The clicking paused. "I could always wake you up."

I had to laugh. "What? Kissing me senseless? I thought you said you weren't going to do that anymore."

He had his dry smirk, which he only gave me partial of as he was only inclined to glance at me before turning back to his work. "More like dump holy water on you. Purifying, enlightening, and invigorating. I am not of a mind to sexually molest my assistants on the job."

"So you do off the job? Wait, sexually molest?"

He just chuckled low and repeated his command for tea, to which I begrudgingly moved to comply with.

"Who's molesting who?" said the bed head of Takigawa, which had poked through the door, followed by the rest of his lanky frame.

"Good. I need someone to investigate the basement."

Takigawa gave Naru a sleepy glare. "Basement? This place doesn't have a basement."

"According to the blueprints, which our employer has just now emailed, it does."

I shuddered over my tin can of earl grey. "Super creepy!"

"Then what have we been using all this time?" asked Takigawa

"The maps drawn up by the building contractors to show the locations of asbestos. Apparently the basement escaped them."

"And me." Monk scratched the back of his head as he leaned over Naru to take a peek at the computer screen he showed him. "Jeeze, no wonder we didn't find it. What took him so long?"

"Some paltry excuse about digital copies," said Naru tersely. "Either way, I need someone to scout it and set up a camera. I'd rather not bring Ms. Hara after yesterday. She is technically injured."

"You're not going to make him go alone," I said, accidentally dropping the teaspoon with the leaves into the teapot's strainer.

Naru gave me one of his signature droll stares. It took me a second, but I got it. He planned on going with, and, by default, so would Lin.

Fishing out the teaspoon and tapping it on the side of the teapot, I said, "Then I'm going to."

The slap of Naru's palm against the table made both of us jump, and the ferocious glare he turned on me made even the bravest part of me, which was use to Naru's fury, cringe.

"I will not have this argument with you," he said, blue eyes like frozen steel. "You are staying here with the others. Only if I deem it safe will you be going anywhere outside this room."

I trembled beneath his despot words. Though it crossed my mind to argue—as no one was my master—the thought no sooner was born than it died, because I could see it: the rare slight hunch of his shoulders, the paleness around his narrowed eyes, the almost imperceptible way his stomach clenched in.

"Did I really scare you that much?" I said without thinking.

He snorted, as though the thought were laughable, but didn't answer as he pushed up from his chair and busied himself with pulling out a spare camera and thermographer.

Meanwhile, Takigawa had put a hand to the doorway as though to brace himself and openly gawked at our boss.

"Wow. I think you actually gave me a chill there, boss. Should you be using a tone like that on a girl, let alone your girlfriend?"

In answer, Naru just snapped at him to get dressed.

I finished his tea and set it next to his laptop with the best air of meekness I could manage. Though I couldn't see how he had a right to speak to me like that, I couldn't entirely blame him. I had ignored him times before and put myself into danger's way. Not to mention the fear was unmistakable. I had to shake off the guilt for being the cause of that fear, even if I had no choice in the matter.

Which was why, despite his rigid objections to any public displays of affection from me, I kneeled down next to where he was tugging out another tote of electric cables and put a hand on his neck. When he turned his head to me I caught his chin and pressed a kiss to his temple.

"I love you."

He blinked at me. At this proximity I could pick out more minute signs of his apprehension that I had missed before: his quick, but controlled breaths, and a slight tremor only seen at the tips of his fingers.

Then he clenched his jaw, smoothed his brow into a plain of determination, and tugged his chin from my grasp.

"You're staying here."

"I know."

"Stay by John and Ayako's side, I don't even want you in a different room from them."

"Okay."

He paused, glancing at me in a way I could read as mistrust, then straightened.

"I hope this new compliancy isn't just slyness," he said.

"I thought by now you'd see that I'm concerned for you."

He humphed. "I'm invincible."

"Which means you have muscles, right? Because now that I think about it, I've never seen you without a shirt."

That threw him off enough to disarm his mistrust and allow me to retreat back to the 'cooking' corner of the base and dig out breakfast. Not to mention that Takigawa returned about then, followed by John who was not only dressed and groomed, but bright-eyed as though he had been awake for hours.

"I suppose I'm to stay here with the ladies?" he said.

"If you would," said Naru. "Lin should be back any minute now."

And as though summoned by those very words, Lin appeared from the hallway with a squeak of door hinges, a packet of digital memory cards in hand to pass over to Naru, who set them next to the computer. Without much ado, the three of them left, and John and I took our places at the monitors, me a bit more gingerly than him as I was still sore from the night before.

"How are you feeling?" he asked.

"Alright," I said, giving him my best smile. "Thanks to you!"

John chuckled and shook his head. "You never cease to surprise me with your ability to bounce back after all we've been through."

"Nonsense. They're just fodder for ghost stories, right?" Which gave me an idea for a date—a really good date. Naru had said he was good at telling ghost stories, and I knew I was the boss at them.

"Have any dreams?" he asked, pulling over Naru's forgotten cup of tea. I said I'd make another, so he took a swig.

"Nothing of importance. Just the usual, you know, glowy lights. Though I did hear this weird…keening noise, like something wailing."

"Seems like a lot of your visions of late have been auditory. Wonder if that could be a clue."

"Well, she doesn't like to be seen, so it's not a stretch to say she doesn't like seeing either."

"Strange. Perhaps we can use that to help narrow down the patients."

"Actually," I tugged over Naru's computer, which he had foolishly left unguarded. "We can probably get underway with that."

John looked as though to question whether it was all right to use my boss's computer without asking, but probably though that, since I was his girlfriend, I could do stuff like this, and scooted his chair in. I took a gamble and typed in 'patient logs' in the program search bar on the start menu and whistled when several items popped into life.

"Lucky guess," said John.

"Forget that, I can't believe how fast it pulled those up! My laptop's a freaking dinosaur compared to his. Pfft, figures." I clicked on the first document that caught my eye. It didn't take us too long to learn that the spreadsheets were of the same hospital, this one, but taken over a span of five years each. The patients were listed by check in date, then by last name and age. In a burst of computer techie genius, John pointed out a way to rearrange and search the spreadsheets by diagnosis, in which I put in 'blindness.'

"I think blindness is more of a symptom," he said, as the computer spazed and listed out about a billion entries with blindness as a symptom, possible or realized.

"Okay…" My fingers hovered over the keys, ready to launch, but I drew a blank. "Um…"

"Try glaucoma."

"Thanks."

But as my eyes skimmed over the results of one spreadsheet and then another, nothing seemed to pop out at me. One name after another skimmed past me without even a tremor of recognition.

On the last spread sheet (years 1985 to 1990), I sighed and decided I better get to readying that extra cup of tea for my bosses return. John took over when I left, chin rested on his thumb, with his forefinger to his upper lip.

As steam wafted up from the stream of tea, I said, "You know, in my dreams she wasn't blind. Just not looking. Just focused on that wall, being small…that poetry…" I stopped as another idea occurred to me. "Wait, John, what about mental illnesses?"

Just as he looked over to me, Ayako came in with a yawn, dressed, but otherwise frumpy.

"Be a dear and pour me a cup, will you?" she said to me. "And a toasted bagel, if you would."

"Excuse me, I'm not your maid," I said, more than a little affronted. It was bad enough that I served as tea girl to Naru.

"Then how bout just the tea then? As a friend?"

"Ugh, fine."

"There's a girl."

Which left me to deal with an even more irate Naru when he returned to find all his readymade tea gone. John apologized profusely, even though it was Ayako who had scarfed down seconds. The little teapot I'd brought along only served enough for three cups, and that's when supplemented by cream, and Ayako had taken none.

I, for one, was still sore from the possession, befuddled by the mystery, and done putting up with his grumpy attitude. Thus, the moment I could slam the stupid tea-addict's earl grey with cream before him, I stomped off into the cot room to find a good corner to fume (or pout).

"Everyone treating me like their freaking hostess," I grumbled. "Creepy thoughts keep sneaking into my head, Naru won't even give me a decent 'I love you too,' the self-absorbed, stick-up-his-ass narcissist." I knew it was because he was stressed with the case, I knew it was because he was worried about me, I knew he probably had some other stupid weird thing that pissed him off too (because that's just how he worked, he had to be grouchy and piss-in-his-pants sour all the time), but I was grouchy too, and angry, so thus, I didn't care.

And what was I even here for now? I wanted to help solve the case—heck, I loved solving cases, I loved the mystery and adventure like the unhealthy thrill junky I was—but this was usually about the time someone suggested we back out, or I back out. Maybe Naru was just finally accepting how much help I was in gathering clues and solving the mystery.

But how could I solve anything if I was blocked off from other spirits?

 _That's not your real gift, Mai._

I caught the ribbon of that thought and slipped it between mental fingers. That's right. Clairvoyance wasn't just seeing spirits, was it? I wasn't Masako, I didn't operate like Masako, and I didn't have to.

I wound the thought tight in my fingers.

"Whelp, better get to sleep again, I suppose. Hopefully this time Gene won't hog it all."


	9. Reminded to Live

**I'm sorry if there are any stupid mistakes in this chapter. I'm SUPER sleepy and about to take a nap. Please R &R, and merry Friday.**

Chapter 8

I thought it wouldn't be a problem. I had gotten a full night's rest, but exhaustion still weighed down like a heavy pack on my back. After checking my phone to see that twenty minutes had passed, I decided that if I wasn't asleep in ten more minutes, I'd go back to the others and dig out an assignment.

Naru got to me before then.

"You know that's my bed, right?"

Yes, because my cot was still folded up in the van from my previous plans, but I had been too lazy to and grumpy to get it. Besides, I liked how his smelled. It smelled like him: musky sage and tea leaves.

"You like how it smells, don't you?"

I flung out the pillow to whap him on the face, which of course left him nonplussed. "Did you come here for a reason?"

"Yes. I was wondering if you wanted to get ice cream with me."

"…really?"

"My treat."

I bounced up like a happy puppy.

"You mean like a date?" I squeaked, all grouchy intentions of snubbing him gone.

One of his rare smiles poked into his cheeks, one that reached his eyes. He thought I was cute. "Impromptu."

"Yay!" I cried, throwing my hands into the air. "And you'll hold my hand?"

He rolled his eyes. "Really, Mai, you're like a five year old. Are you coming or not?"

"Heck yeah!" I jumped off his cot, then hesitated. "What about the case? Won't they need you here?"

"Nothing's likely to happen until night with you and Masako out of the building," he said mildly. "Besides, I need to trust them to survive without my presence while I'm on an ice cream run."

I pushed him forward lightly. "Then walk, you said you'd hold my hand."

"No I didn't."

"But you're going to, because you love me and right now you think I'm cute."

"Sure, how intuitive of you. Mush mush."

I did so, happily, tying on a red jacket to my waist in case the spring weather turned cold. I loved ice cream above all other treats. Not to mention the idea of getting out of this stifling old building where'd the smell of ancient antiseptics couldn't coil up my gut made my knees weak with relief (not like I'd duck out now, though, I had face to save).

At first I trotted to the van, but Naru went past it, reminding me that he didn't have a license. I almost smacked myself. It was just my knee-jerk reaction to think Naru could do anything worth mentioning. Though, for all I knew, he did have a license. It wasn't like the old hospital was out of the way of anything. An old, comfortable suburb hugged its grounds and parking lot.

"There's a shopping district a few blocks from here," he said, pointing past the parking lot and into said suburb. "I hope you don't mind a bit of a walk."

Most of it would be crossing the hospital grounds anyways. "Nope!"

"Ah, and before I forget," he took a hand out of his pocket and twined his fingers in mine. I squealed in my throat and squeezed.

It didn't take too long for me to start thinking this was just a little too good to be true. The hot balloon in my chest deflated ever so slightly.

"Naru, is everything okay?"

"Why wouldn't it be?" As we stepped off the front lawn and into the cracked and weed infested parking lot, his black shoe scuffed against the last black remains of winter's frost.

"Didn't you say, and I quote, 'I don't do romance'? I mean, you're taking me out on a date of your own volition without me nagging or whimpering at you."

A little dip, almost like a dimple, pulled on one side of his mouth. It was a special sort of displeasure, one which I had yet to name in him. Since his default mood was grouchy, all the negative feelings sort of blurred into one another after a time.

"Are you saying you don't like it?" he said.

"Are you kidding me?" I gave his hand another squeeze. "This is the best thing ever! You couldn't make me more happy even if Christmas came early!"

He lifted his eyebrow at me. "All for ice cream?"

"Ice cream with _you_ , dummy."

There it was. The shift to the side and the cock to his head so his bangs swept across his eyes. He had done something romantically right and was pleased with himself.

It was a marvelous walk. Spring had seasoned every breath with the musk of new leaves, pollen, and the heavy undertones of wet, warm earth. The sun shone warm and bright, and clouds scattered about the blue sky like herds grazing on the blue. Over the walls and budding greenery of hedges could be heard the murmur of life as children too young to go to school played and mothers went about their work. The birds were almost a racket. I would have skipped if I didn't fear Naru's withdrawing of his hand out of embarrassment. I wasn't about to threaten his progress.

"You're getting some color back," I heard after a while of silence.

"Huh? Was I that pale before?"

He didn't answer, his serious dark eyes still probing my face, almost like they did upon charts or the evidence of his machines. It didn't last long, though, before he looked forward, the lines I hadn't noticed before smoothing about his eyes. I frowned.

"Penny for your thoughts?"

He gave a noncommittal grunting noise.

"Oh, come on, it's girlfriend's privilege. To, uh, encourage intimacy and all that."

There was a flinch to the way his eyes flicked to me (which made me absolutely die inside with the force it took not to laugh), that ended with his usual 'you're an idiot' look. But, on reaching a crossing and having to wait for the light to turn, he answered me.

"I read a study somewhere about an African tribe—not sure which, they all tend to blend together after a while—that had an unorthodox way of dealing with a recent attempt at genocide of their people. Rather than leaving their people alone and quiet in a dark room like we westerners are all too prone to do with those who have faced tragedy or some other horrific event, they all went outside in the bright sunshine to dance and sing. This was their form of healing, to chase away the darkness and to remind the people how to live again. Psychologists have taken this into account into today's methods of treatment."

The light switched to 'walk' and we started our way across the road.

As usual, he sounded like an audiobook recording of textbook, without the fun little voices or inflections. I listened with rapture, though, all too use to being refused the knowledge of what went on in his head. I would have listened no matter how boring.

But why would he…ah.

I waited till we were on the other side of the road, with a branch of a cherry tree hanging over the walls to welcome us with blossoms, before speaking.

"Thank you. That's really sweet of you, trying to take care of me and all."

He tucked his chin further away from me, but I thought I could feel him give my hand a gentle squeeze. There was no cocky tweak of his head and brush of the bangs when he was extra pleased at doing something right this time. Smiling, I lifted our hands to kiss his fingers and watched the soft pink brush across the high cheek and ear I could see.

The shopping district was as most were: a single lane that opened up at one end to a larger street. Displays of fresh vegetables, fruit, ready-made lunches, and other grocery goods sat beneath the cool shade of shop awnings. Humble shop folk served those on their way to work, as well as a few late students and housewives.

Tucked between a seafood stall and a fried food vendor was a soft-serve ice cream stand. I slipped my hand out of Naru's to check out the flavors at the end before the beginning. I was weird like that. They had all my favorite tubs of flavors, and I almost left drool marks on the glass. I could feel the ice cream lady's smile.

I let out a little moan of pain, to which Naru answered with a low snort of amusement.

"Just get something with chocolate," he said, knowing my indecision in an instant.

"Yeah, but she's got lemon and peach here too—who sells that anymore?"

"Right?" said the ice cream lady.

"Then best go with what you're less likely to get elsewhere," he said.

But the chocolate sounded so goooooood.

I ended up with a cup holding a round scoop of lemon and a scoop of chocolate. Naru got a mint chocolate chip, which I said fit him perfectly: cool to the end, which he didn't get at all. I could tell. He did that half roll of the eyes that wasn't quite calling me a moron, just weird.

"At least you were able to make a decision," he said. "Gene would take forever agonizing over it like it was the last ice cream he'd ever taste."

I tried hard not to make too big of a reaction to this. I couldn't remember if Naru had ever mentioned Gene of his own free will with nothing pressing him—he often refused to talk about him even when people asked. The moment was lost as I remembered my dream from the night before and the grim words Naru's twin had given me.

"That reminds me," I said, and I related the dream to Naru, being sure to include the weird wail I had heard as well as Gene mentioning that he could reach through wards a lot of spirits couldn't simply because we were both mediums.

"…and then he said the weirdest thing. That his soul was his own, that he wasn't you, and asked me why he should be kept back by you."

I watched his face through all this, as it often spoke more for him than himself. At first he had been surprised, then intrigued, and at these words his look darkened. He had forgotten his ice cream, while I had already finished mine in between breaths as I spoke.

I didn't like it, whatever I saw. It reminded me of the time long ago when I had argued using Masako on the Urado case by asking if he had ever relived another's experience of being murdered.

He stabbed his plastic spoon into his melting ice cream, took my empty cup, and dumped them in a trash bin at the end of the shopping district. A man in a business suit, with his jacket slung over his arm and his sleeves rolled up, walked past us in avid conversation with someone on his cell phone.

"—I told her he would fall through, I told her he'd forget, but oh no! Damn it if anyone should listen to me!—"

"Mai," he tucked his hands into the pockets of his black pants. Black shirt. Black shoes. Always black. "I hope it's not necessary to warn you that you don't have to believe everything my brother says. He's not a god, just human, and a spirit at that, vulnerable to the thoughts of those around him, just like that mute boy we cleansed from John's parish."

"I know." Though I wouldn't admit that it hadn't even crossed my mind to doubt anything Gene had said.

"It hasn't even crossed your mind to doubt anything he's said."

I flinched. "Jeeze, I hate it when you do that!"

"You're face is an open book." It was amusing when he excused himself in that voice of his that said he didn't have to excuse himself.

"But why should I worry about what he says? He isn't a liar, is he?"

"Wasn't, and not usually, and that wasn't what I said. This isn't a question of his character, but a warning of his fallibilities."

I ground to a halt and gave a loud grunt of frustration. "You're being confusing again, just cut out the fluff and be blunt: what are you so worried about?"

I stared him hard in the eyes, and he stared back. I could see the mixture of the speeding cogs of his genius mind and the small glint of confused emotions. A twinge of concern tightened my throat. Talking about Gene must be hard. Perhaps I shouldn't have been so harsh. But he really _was_ being confusing.

He blinked, then shifted his weight. "I'm not holding him back, nor will I ever have such power. That's his decision and his problem."

"That last part sounds really cold of you, Naru."

"The truth often is."

Which was why I wasn't upset with him. I did sigh, though.

"I hope you know I wouldn't accuse you of doing something like that. You moved your whole world just to recover his body and have already done everything in your power to put his soul to rest. In fact, knowing you," I glanced at him through my lashes slyly, though I did my best to smile kindly, "you probably need to be told what you just told me more than I do. So, Naru: you aren't holding him back, nor can you. It's Gene's problem, not yours."

I could see something flicker in him; his person, his face, in the way his elbows rose. I waited with baited breath for something phenomenal, like the rarer-than-pink-dolphins occasion of Naru showing his true feelings about his brother.

But in a blink, it was gone, and he was back to his usual serious, aloof self.

"Really, Mai, keep that in mind next time you speak to him. I don't want you to get hurt or carried away because of anything he said."


	10. Retreat to Water

**Ugh, talk about nightmares last night. The uncomfortable, related to life ones that you can't really shake off as 'just being a nightmare.' Personally, I think those are worse.**

Chapter 9

The hospital basement proved to be surprisingly not as creepy as I expected. Unlike the upstairs walls, the basement's had no peeling wallpaper and no stains. Since the basement had been somewhat hidden behind a cabinet in one of the locked nurse's offices, no trash or weeds had built up either, leaving the floor clear as the day it was cleaned out (besides a fine layer of dust, that is). It consisted of a single, short hallway with four doors, each of which opened to equally clean storage rooms. Only the last room on the left didn't have cabinets or shelves, but judging by the tears in the carpet, it had once housed filing cabinets.

"I find the lack of bloodstains and bodies rather disappointing," said Takigawa as he was giving me a brief tour, watched by a pensive Naru and Masako.

"I can't see anything," she said, dressed in a tasteful blouse and capris rather than a kimono, for once. "But it feels strange, like the walls are holding their breath. The rooms feel raw, as though the emptiness hurts them."

"Well, emptiness isn't exactly good on a building," said Naru. "Decay settles in within weeks of eviction, and I can smell mildew. Despite its looks, there's been flooding down here." He squatted down near a wall and slipped out a thin metal rectangle, which he used to pry the baseboard from the wall. "As I thought."

We peered over his shoulder to see the blotches of black dots coating both the baseboard and the naked wall behind it. He flicked the metal at the bottom of the wallpaper (a golden yellow with a wavy pattern I'd often seen in houses from the 60's), and it peeled away like orange skin, revealing more black dots.

"Only the lack of traffic has kept this place looking better than upstairs. Best we stay clear. Asbestos is going to be the least of our concerns if we disturb anything down here."

That being said, he still checked the cameras and sensors before leading us back upstairs. I was more than happy to close the door behind us.

"Don't you think it's kind of weird, though?"

"What?" I asked Takigawa.

"I didn't see any mouse droppings or anything like that. I mean, remember that closet we opened up? Those rats were huge! And that was just a little closet. Wouldn't they be all over a basement no one goes into?"

Takigawa shrugged. "Maybe without the traffic there wasn't anything to eat down there. I mean, I didn't see any of those brown fuzzy spiders this place breeds either."

Naru stopped at the door of the Nurse's office. "…no cobwebs either."

"Maybe pest control stuff lasts longer in basements?" I suggested, wondering why Naru had gone so still. "It's not like ghosts could do that, right?"

"Animals have always had stronger senses than man's. But whether there is something supernatural at play here or not, we need more evidence to do anything about it."

Thus, with Naru's verdict, we returned to the upper world. Bright afternoon sunshine poured in, and I could still taste the chocolate and lemon ice cream on my lips. As I thought about it, I scratched absentmindly at the charm pasted just above my shoulder blades. I wouldn't be able to take a shower until this was over either. It'd be just like camping.

…. _small_ …

It drifted through me like a whisper, but put me at a dead stop, every hair on my body on end. Masako had stopped as well.

Takigawa noticed first. "What's up?"

"She's here," whispered Masako, a hand to her mouth, though this time she didn't have a kimono's sleeve to hide the fearful tremor to her lips.

Naru jerked about. "Where?"

As one, against our better judgment, Masako and I turned.

Base was near the west front entrance to the hospital, so we had just stepped into the West Hall from the North Hall. Scraps of dust crusted black plastic and tarp crowded the corners as usual, and a hyperactive imagination could suppose they had been frozen in attempts to crawl up the wall. All the windows were, naturally, boarded up, leaving only the yellow, half-flickering light of old fluorescent tubes.

But at the far end, the lights had failed. The hall had never appeared so long to me; the south end so far. A dizzing sensation flooded into my brain on the pounding waves of my blood, bringing with it the sense of vertigo, and the long hall tipped and tipped till it was a fall.

Then I blinked and it righted, but just seen in the half-darkness, almost forgettable, was a small, white form, with dark hair hanging in stringy curtains about the head.

Masako half gasped, half squeaked, and the far away figure vanished.

"Keep moving," said Naru. "Takigawa, get behind the girls."

But Monk had already stepped between us and the far end of the hallway, fingers set, and a bronze symbol of sorts in hand. His mantra thrummed through the air like a bass bell.

I pulled out John's crucifix from my shirt as we turned after Naru.

"Take this!" I stuck it out to Masako. Her beautiful dark eyes widened.

"Whatever for?"

"It's no fair that I have double protection and you have nothing."

"Masako can defend herself," said Naru, who had fallen out into a stiff jog.

I opened my mouth to argue, but Masako stopped me.

"He's right. I was caught off guard last time, I shouldn't this time. But…thank you."

And as she finished saying this, her mouth puckered into the first of her own mantras and her hands came up.

The lights stayed on above us and Naru started to slow. I dared to glance behind us to see that the lights had also turned on, and the darkness had fled to its usual spider-infested corners. Yet an uneasiness still coiled in my chest, like the tension before a scream. Monk's mantras lowered to a hum, allowing Masako's small voice to come out more defined. At this, Naru slowed to a walk.

"Ms. Hara, what is that you are chanting?"

" _-sui-dai—_ wha-? What I always do."

"Yes, but what is it?"

If Masako thought it strange that he was finally bothering to ask after two years, she didn't show it.

"It's just a Tao juji, or mantra. It's a basic warding spell my mentor taught me."

"Is this what most mediums are taught?"

"Well, there are other juji formulas. It really depends on which one works for the medium."

"Say it again."

Monk was lagging behind, though he had finished his spell and I could hear the pattering of his steps as he caught up. The presence seemed to have backed off for the moment.

Which meant I could hear Masako clearly as she recited in her usual soft voice.

" _Ten-ryū-ko-ō-shō-ze-myō-ki-sui-dai."_

"And there's nine of them?"

"No, you missed one. 'Ō' is one unto itself, so there are ten. Their original meaning is debated upon, but it's the syllables that help focus one's spiritual power and resonate a call for help."

"Ten…"

"If you're wondering if they're related to the nine cuts, they are, but in a…how do I put it. They're older than the sacred nine words."

"Before it got translated and adapted by the Japanese," said Naru, with that voice I knew all too well as his 'lightbulb' voice. Ding. Idea.

"What are you getting at?" I asked.

Base was only a few doors away now. I could even see true sunlight from the base window, which had been one of the few to be left unboarded. I knew whatever I had seen at the end of the corridor still watched, but couldn't comprehend anything happening with sunlight in view.

"I'll let you know if it leads to anything."

I groaned. "Oh no, not this ag-"

 _Small. Small. I am…I can't…I want—want—want to be…the wall._

"Mai?"

My stomach hurt. I hugged it hard, fearing to see my insides again. The overwhelming urge to back into the wall, to squeeze behind a door, to hide until I vanished entirely, set rolls of black plastic up my calves. Naru ran forward to grab my arms.

 _I can't, I can't—small small, wall—_

My heart's rapid beats blended into one another. Brown fuzzy spiders fled from their disturbed plastic, one went over my shoe. I stared at the cracked linoleum where it had been. I could feel them closing in, plastic gloves, masked, fingers of thin, delicate blades—

"Takigawa!"

When had it become so dark? Who turned off the lights? But I could feel them, feel them, feel them all—the only escape was one. I could not be a wall, I could not disappear, thus there was only one escape.

I bit my wrist. Rusty blood tickled my tongue. Deeper, teeth, deeper, only one escape, only one way to close my eyes to it all.

My wrist was yanked from my mouth. Someone slung me over their shoulder, knocking the air from me. A green monster had grabbed me, wished to pull me into the film of strangers—so many strangers. I screamed and kicked, I begged for them to let me be, to let me hide, to just drop me off into the dark—

And then I was dropped. Ice cold water snapped me back to the stabbing pain in my wrist and the taste of blood in my mouth.

And a wild-eyed, wet Naru crouched at the tub in a familiar bathroom lit only by the light from the open door. Beyond it, Takigawa continued to chant and Ayako yelled something about getting Masako and me out a window.

"Mai," his voice had gone high.

Blood floated from my wrist to spread across the top of the water. The bathroom door squeaked to close—but on the last stream of sunlight I caught someone else standing in the bathroom, someone else with her hands reaching out for Naru, her greasy hair long and unkempt.

Thin, white fingers clawed into his scalp.


	11. Want

**Ding! Ding! Ding! My greatest fear: puke. I have a stupid severe case of emetophobia. ^.^ Here's your chapter.**

Chapter 10

With every ounce of strength in my body, and ignoring every scream of my still sore muscles, I grabbed fistfuls of his shirt and hauled him into the tub. Water flooded the bathroom and snapped the bathroom door the rest of the way.

And the thing about hospital bathroom doors? They're big and seal around the corners. Thus, we were plunged into pitch blackness.

We nearly drowned each other in my attempt to get all of him in the tub and his to get his head above the water. Though on the large side, the tub was still only meant for one person, leaving me squashed to the bottom by full grown man. I had to poke my chin up as high as it would go to breathe.

" _Damn it,_ Mai—"

"I swear I'm not possessed, but she was standing right behind you—"

A knocking, rattling shook through the walls. Beyond the bathroom door I could hear other doors closing and shutting. There was a sharp clang that popped my ears, followed by the hiss of rushing water.

Naru pressed down onto me, keeping his hand to my face. I could feel a sprinkling of water on my face and coughed as some went down my nose.

The rattling went on, growling, moaning, sending waves of water up my nose.

Then all fell into an awful quiet. No sounds of the rest of the team. No banging. Just the fizz of spraying water and my own breathing echoed back to me from the water in my ears.

My head was starting to feel a little funny. Really light.

"Talk to her,"

His voice came from above the water. I squirmed to get my head up to hear him properly, but he wasn't budging an inch. Don't worry, it has occurred to me just how hot and steamy this whole situation would be if it wasn't freaking terrifying.

"And what? Ask her to stop?"

"If that's what you think will work."

I opened my mouth to do just that, but having your head half-drowned in a bath with your mouth full of blood and raw, acidic terror still curdling up in your stomach, my throat collapsed. It replayed over and over in my mind that she had possessed me despite John's, Ayako's, and Takigawa's combined efforts. No spirits should be able to do that. None accept…

Mediums.

"The nine-cuts worked to protect Masako because this ghost was probably taught them in her own life," breathed Naru, his breath filling up my precious space of air. "Or rather, a relation to Masako's juji. She respects those. She fears those. She keeps coming to you because—"

"Because I'm a medium." I finished for him.

"And possibly the only one she can reach," his breath was getting shorter. "But that's not it. She was a patient at this hospital for mental reasons—any mental reasons would screw up with that—"

"And this is suppose to help us how? She's standing right next to us, I can feel her."

And I could. I could almost even see her long, white fingers scuttling over the edge of the bathtub like one of the many spiders. Her hair was what made it so hard to breathe, as she brushed it across my face over and over like a mother's hand. She wanted to touch us so badly. I knew.

Naru said nothing. His heart pounded almost as quickly as mine against my stomach. His hands clenched my sides.

But he was right. Talking to her was the only way out at this point. No one was coming to open the door, and the moment either of us stepped out, she'd have her hands on us. I didn't want to know what happened when she tried to mess with Naru. Perhaps she was getting impatient.

"Let me up a bit."

He did his best too, but I only managed to get my ears above the water. That was okay. That's all I needed. With a deep breath, I stared into the darkness, straining to see what I instinctively knew was there.

"I…whoever you are, standing there, I can't help you if you…possess me."

Hair brushed my face again. The blood in my mouth became vivid and bitter, and I gagged. I heard nothing, felt nothing, only getting the sense that that long hair wafted waves into my face and the ever longing to reach me, to dig into me, to pull me out, make me mortal, make me raw and visceral and a rainbow of organs.

Light. Why'd my head feel so light?

"What do you want?" I asked, speaking at random now. "Please, let us go. We're just trying to help."

I could feel her pressing in even harder. My eyes rolled into the back of my hand and I couldn't stop them. I couldn't breathe right. Naru was so heavy, and she…she took up the space with her want…

 _Small. Small._ A whimper now. _Just a wall. No breasts. No hips…._

A pressure seemed to lift—and the presence of the spirit vanished.

Like a switch, sound came barreling in. Takigawa was banging on the bathroom door.

"Naru! Mai! Answer us!"

John and Ayako's voice joined them just before a gruff "stand aside" from Lin sent the poor door flying into the sink with a shatter of mirror and a flood of light.

They all came in just as I took my first chance to see the compromising position I had put myself in. In attempts to protect my legs from Naru's knees (or more importantly, from Naru's knees busting out my own), I had spread them out. Braced between them, barely fitting the space allotted to him by my own mass and the tub, was Naru, flushed up against me, face mere inches from my face, and arms tucked beneath him with his hands to my waist.

The bathwater still sloshed over the edges.

They all stared. John went deathly pale.

"R-R-really…" he started, but was overwhelmed by catcalls from Takigawa and Ayako.

"I'm sorry for interrupting—"

"Really, Naru, have you no sense of romance?"

"And here I thought all that banging was a ghost—"

Even Lin looked highly embarrassed. He started ushering everyone out.

"No—wait!" I cried. "This isn't what it looks like. There really was a ghost!"

They hesitated, though poor John just about wilted in relief. As though to second that, Naru straightened with all the grace of a man who had simply gotten down to observe one of his prize plants and had finished.

"Lin, has Yasu gotten back with the narrowed list?"

The tall Chinese man nodded, and Naru carefully maneuvered himself from between my legs and the bath. The water level shrunk to a third its original depth, and he stood, all dripping, composed man, his black clothes sticking to him like a second skin.

At about that time, I realized the water was pink, and that my wrist hurt something awful. I moved to sit up and crawl after Naru, but the world started to spin and my hand connected to the bleeding wrist didn't seem to want to work right. I ignored it and used the other, determined to end this mortifying nightmare.

"How's Masako?"

"Fine. She seems worried about Mai, though, she's just over there, actually," said Ayako.

"Good. Have her teach her juji formula to Mai."

Takigawa frowned his displeasure. "What? The warding magic I taught her not enough?"

"Obviously."

My feet tingled with pins and needles as though they had fallen asleep as they spread onto the tiles, readying to lift me. I clutched one hand to the tub, and the other to my chest. I could see the outline of my bra through my pink shirt, which was slowly growing darker with the blood spreading out.

Dizzy…how did my wrist get hurt anyways? And so much blood. Why hadn't I…

"Naru, catch me."

I didn't wait to see if he heard me. The walls had tipped like a blender, swooping the floor beneath me, shoving me down, down, down.

 _I don't want to exist._


	12. Wanting to Not Want

**Dingy Ding! Someone got half of the answer to Plain right, so here is one chapter for that. You asked for it.**

 **Plain does have to do with the spiritual plain, the plain girl, plain plane plain everything. But the reason I named it plain was because I intended her to be a White Lady, but since she's not a girl and not really in a white dress, but in a off-white hospital gown, I went with a less strong version of white: plain.**

 **Been thinking about changing the chapter name, but then it'd be hard for people to find it again, wouldn't it?**

Chapter 11

Gene already had my hand in a vice like grip. He pulled me, up, down, through—all at the same time, through a space of foxfires. His gaze was elsewhere and narrowed, but his mouth merely pursed, as though troubled for sympathetic reasons rather than danger.

But he blurred. The foxfires flickered in and out. Voices clouded out whatever he said, voices from outside of me as well as within.

And then a high keening note broke through it all. The foxfires fell away, though Gene did not. He held on too tight.

A room came back into focus, one I didn't recognize. Bunk beds filled one end, and a few wardrobes fill the other. Everything in the room had been colored on a pastel or pink scheme, leading one to believe that this was a bunkhouse for girls.

But only one girl was in here, surrounded by older teenage boys. As soon as I noticed her, I was near, and could see that she could be no older than twelve, with her womanhood just budding. Her beautiful dark brown hair fell in thick waves down her shoulders, and her almond blue eyes spoke of many broken hearts in her future.

But she was pale, and her lips colored too roughly with cheap lipstick. She wore only her bra and panties, and several hands had her by her arms, ready to push her down.

Gene's grip, which I had momentarily lost in my strange transportation, snapped back around my hand and yanked me back, up and up into the safe, foxfire lit darkness.

"You're not seeing that," even in spirit, his voice shook. "You will not. You won't."

His arms turned me around and clutched me to him, blinding me to everything but a sense of something like fire burning gently against my face.

But the budding horror took me forward, through Gene, past him, for he, after all, was only a guide, and a spirit at that. I didn't have to look back to know he trailed after me in alarm.

The next room was one I recognized as the old hospital's ER room, though not so old anymore, but bright and clean. Emergency personnel and two doctors clustered about a bed, where the only thing I saw of the occupant was pale legs and a spread of dark brown hair, sticky with blood. Instinctively, I knew this girl had suffered a blow to the head, but that wasn't what the doctors muttered to one another.

"…multiple times…"

"How did no one notice?"

It was the same girl, although two years older. Two years in the same pink room, with the same group of boys.

Gene was less than gentle when he tugged me back this time. I could almost feel his hands reaching to truly touch my soul.

"Stop! Mai, please!"

"Who is this girl, Gene?"

And ever that faint keening, wavering, wailing.

He pulled me to the black abyss, swept foxfires around me, eyes wide, desperate. A great strength rose within me, not a happy one, but not a bad one either.

"Gene, what are you so afraid of?"

Because it couldn't just be this girl's horrible past. It had to have something to do with that noise, because I had never seen him like this, so pale, so aggressive in his efforts to keep me from wondering.

"She's not a safe place," he murmured. "Orphanages…"

But what did orphanages have to do with this? What happened to the girl? Did she die in the ER room? Was she the medium?

I pulled, but he held tight.

"Let me go, I just need one more clue."

He bit his lip, but then suddenly his face twisted into something much more grave, much more like his brother Naru.

"You will regret it," he said.

"Why?"

"Because people are evil."

It wasn't just Gene speaking. His voice changed, split, into several, and even his visage seemed to shiver with the effort. His fingers uncurled from my arm and waist and he slid back till only our fingertips touched.

"I'll bring you back," he said, more of a promise than a threat.

And then I turned, and as though it had been waiting for me, another room came out from the darkness with familiar green wallpapered walls and aluminum bed. The curtains still hung and were a grey plum, but curtains covered the windows and the flowers in the corner were fake. The room felt off, and it took me a moment to realize that the only furniture in there was the bed, which was bolted to the floor.

"'ello."

I flinched and turned to see the same beautiful, heart-breaking blue eyes staring out at me from a thin face. The long brown hair had been cut short, though what length it did have she had combed into one curtain in front of her face. The white hospital gown did little to cover up the soiled undergarments she wore.

She could have been fourteen, in active growth into her womanhood, but she smiled at me like a child.

"You're different," she said airily. "Tip down the po po, big girl. Think you're so special."

"You…you can see me?"

The girl flashed her teeth, yellowed, but all there. Neither the grin before or this one were kind, though they made a mockery of it. "You can see me?"

I clutched my hands to my chest. "Awful things have happened to you…"

"To the pee pee," she said, all too seriously. "You get me?"

"What?"

"They'll cut into you, show you just how mortal you are, show you the great worm within…feeding you…craving you…"

I seized up on hearing my own thoughts come out of the pee-smelling girl's mouth. The blue eyes looked right into me, right through me.

"Over and over," the girl continued, "showing you what's inside, promises promises, you won't be hurt—oh, but you'll get better. It's natural. It's all natural."

I stumbled back, something great and hollow yawning within my gut, threatening to engulf me as the realization dawned on me. But then my back hit the room's wall—my fingers brushed against peeling wallpaper. Everything aged before my eyes to the filthy, boarded up room of the present.

The girl, though, turned to the side, hunching up against the wall, pulling her legs in…

"Small, small, into the wall, they won't find me, won't reaching inside, won't cut inside, won't…" she stopped, her hands going between her legs than up to her face, covering her cheeks with her own urine. "You're weird. Not like the others. Lots and lots walk in and out. Dead dead, I want to be dead. Hard to see your organs when you're dead, hard to be hungry. No giant worm to ground boners into your bread—all the food you eat, all dirt, all puke, all for the giant worm."

"Stop." I couldn't find my own thoughts anymore. Why had I come here? How could there ever be anything more pitiful than this?

"Let my hair suck in light. Let my lungs breathe out silence. My limbs have already melted into my flat body, no more breasts, no more hips, no more waist or nose or chin."

Nothing to be cut into, nothing to bring them to you, nothing for them to demand of you. But how awful it was, how awful, to be so hungry, be so _need._

"Stop." I could just hear myself.

The girl rubbed herself hard with a sensual moan. "In the wall, against the wall—"

"STOP!"

But her moan turned to that high, climatic keening that had been background noise all this time, which went on and on as she wobbled back and forth against the wall. I slapped my hands to my ears, but it did no good. On this plain, no physical ears could be covered, nor no physical eardrums be blocked.

Hands reached through the wall and pulled me back so roughly, for a time, I knew nothing. Something that could have been Gene, pale and faint, drifted across my consciousness.

Evil. People had made that girl out of their own lusts and game; then to be forgotten in that room to disappear in her own filth.

Because how did you ever fix someone that broken?


	13. Where Evil Has Been Done

**Praise to user Sleonard who guessed it! Our ghost girl had a case of autism! All give praise and reverence to the brilliance of Sleonard! Just one more chapter to go and an epilogue and we'll be done, folks! Please let me know what you think. It was so fun playing with you all. ^.^**

Chapter 12

I woke up to a shock of white and periwinkle blue. To my drowsy, half-conscious eyes, I thought I was in the sky. It only lasted for a fraction of a second before I picked out the white, squared ceilings (ceilings don't chance much from hospital to hospital, don't they?), light blue walls, and a lone window. Warm spring sunlight shown through its sheer curtains, which fluttered in a light breeze. I could smell the freshly mowed grass outside.

On the other side of me was Naru, much as I expected him to be: dark, legs crossed, and engrossed in a book. Besides him sat John, who smiled widely on meeting my eye.

"'ello, mate," he said softly.

Naru glanced up, his cheek resting on his hand.

"About time," said Naru, snapping the book closed. "No one passing out from mild blood loss should have been unconscious for that long. I suppose you were busy."

Busy as in 'having my visions.' I had had them while knocked out before, as it was more necessary to be unconscious rather than asleep. From his expectant tone I assumed he was eager for any clues I could give him to the case.

"Where are the others?" I asked.

"Having a Skype chat with Yasu. Apparently he's thinking of catching a bus over here, because we're all on a little field trip and he wanted to join the fun."

Even John winced. I scratched out the theory of Naru's tone being of impatience and wrote in 'pissed.' Was it because I passed out? Nah, that couldn't be. He wasn't unreasonable, after all. Heck, Oliver Davis was anything but that. But then what?

"Do you…not want Yasu around?"

"More or less, but as he is not an employee of mine, I have little say in the matter. Besides, as he has shown no signs of being a medium, he is most likely safe." But, by the sounds of it, Naru wasn't too please. "Did you or did you not have any visions?"

"Well, yeah, but…" my voice died. I had, for one blessed minute, forgotten all of it. Now my insides twisted sickenly and I hugged myself to keep all of it still, as well as ward off the cold that had put the hairs on my arm on end.

John was looking from Naru to me in dismay. He seemed to want to say something, but couldn't find his place to.

Naru didn't miss my sudden withdrawal into the hospital bed. "The sooner you get it out the better, Mai. Try to be objective. Distance yourself."

"Easy for you to say."

John winced again, this time at my bitter tone. "Um, I'll just get some coffee?"

"You can stay, Father, we're not having some lover's spat." He waved his hand, almost flippantly, before him, eyes downcast to pull out a notepad and pen he had tucked away at his side. "Do your best, Mai. I want to be rid of this…nightmare just as much as you. Once we're done with this…" his voice hesitated, teetered on the edge of softness, and he glanced at John. John probably didn't notice, but after knowing Naru for so long, I could see the lines of his self-consciousness. Saying anything even close to sweet in front of anyone was as bad as stripping naked to Naru.

It was with that smile tickling the corners of my lips that I told him all that I had seen. When the ice tar swirling my gut rose up to cut off my throat, I'd look to the window and the sunlight outside to remind myself where I was, and of that which thawed me best. Like walking in the sunshine with Naru and eating ice cream. Had that really only been today? It was evening already. The days were getting longer.

When I had said all that I had to say, Naru clicked his pen and frowned at his notes.

"Something doesn't add up," he said, pressing the side of the pen to his temple. "There's little doubt she could be a medium. I've narrowed down the list Yasu sent me to a few girls and you've just singled out the one I need, but…where would she have gotten training in an orphanage? Where was the affect of the dead in her life? Of her powers? From what you've told me and what I've read, it's hardly mentioned."

"Yeah, if you can speak with the dead, that's going to stand out in some way," said John.

"And in an orphanage," continued Naru, as though unaware he was speaking out loud, "she would have become very in touch with her powers, especially with the social stress. There would be no way she could hide it from others."

An uncomfortable twinge told me he was speaking from experience, and I took another look to the window.

"Does that…do horrible things like that…really happen in orphanages?"

I could feel both John and Naru respond to me without looking at them in the way John's breath hitched and Naru's pen clicked.

"What do you expect?" He said dryly. "You throw a bunch of children no one cares about into a building and put some people in to watch them, like orderlies to an asylum." Naru snorted. "Did you know? In old English, 'asylum' was used for boarding schools for the poor and orphaned."

"Mai?" asked John.

I had started to shake. It hurt. My body had already gone through so much, and my muscles had already shivered more than many do in a life time. It felt like knives to my gut and pinches to my neck.

A warm, soft hand took mine and the bed creaked as John sat down. He wore his usual khaki slacks and a blue T-shirt that brought out his eyes. For not the first time, the freckled baby-face struck me as being more cherubic than priest-like. Twenty-one and he could still get away with sneaking through a middle school.

"You need to remember that with great evil, there is also great good. In order for there to be a choice for man to choose good, he must also be able to choose evil."

"But to a child…and there's more of them…"

But what troubled me most was that Naru and Gene had been in an orphanage once. They had been adopted. What if…what if…

"Nothing like that happened to me or Gene, so don't give that thought any time," said Naru, in his usual mind-reading way.

"But I can't accept it—how could anyone do that and still be sane? That just…I can't…"

The coldness finally clamped down about my throat. I couldn't speak, just sob. Hot tears trickled down my face, which were caught by John's clean white handkerchief. As I cry, he shushed and spoke calm, clean words to me, of heaven, of angels, and a God who accepted every tortured soul and healed all wounds.

Naru watched out of the corner of his eye, tapping his pen, and occasionally glancing at his notes.

"So those visions she showed you and Masako…they were representations of rape. To be expected, as even healthy minds use metaphor and symbols to convey traumatic experiences. She was trying to communicate her trauma, to make sense of it, to seek healing."

But that wasn't right, and I shook my head hard. Naru didn't catch it, but John did.

"What is it Mai?"

I sniffed and breathed deep in attempts to loosen my voice.

"She just wanted it to end."

Naru looked at me now, or rather, at my wrist, which lay heavily bandaged next to me on the blanket. I tried to explain more, but what more was there to say that hadn't been repeated?

"A truly broken soul," said John.

"Yes," said Naru. "But, then, why is she still here? What is she waiting for? Any malady caused by the head trauma wouldn't be in effect in the spirit. How did she become so malicious…." He stopped, eyes widening, than narrowing with a quiet curse.

"What?" John asked.

He stood up. "I need to clarify something with Masako. If you'd excuse me."

With that, he swept out of the room. My stomach sank. I had hoped…but then, I couldn't expect him to read my mind all the time, right? And we were professionals. Not to mention it wasn't like he would know how to comfort me when I myself didn't know how.

John's soft handkerchief came up to dab the corner of my tear-scraped eye.

"Mai," he hesitated. "Would it be okay if…if I prayed for you? Or give you a blessing, I should say."

I shrugged. It wasn't like it would bother me much if he said something about me in his bedtime prayers or whenever he did that sort of thing.

To my surprise, he didn't leave, but closed the door, locked it, and then picked up the crucifix that had been set on the bedside table. After slipping it back over my head, he kneeled down beside my bed, folded his freckled hands against the white covers, and bowed his head.

"Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name," he paused to allow the words time to sink into the room, like the writes of an ancient spell. I found myself clutching the handkerchief to my nose, desperate to not ruin the quiet with a loud sniff.

After only a second of thought, he continued, in the most reverent, meek of voices. "We thank thee for thy protection of our friends, especially of our Mai Taniyama. As we struggle through this time to give ease to those both living and dead, please bless us with thy guidance, as we are always under thy care."

A breath of breeze gusted through the room. The sheer drapes rustled, lifted up, and left behind the smell of the sunlight.

"God Almighty," he breathed, "at this time, please give Mai comfort. Her soul is tender and clean, and her heart, which years to care for all those she meets, suffers with the darkness she has witnessed in her work to heal. It's a sadness beyond comfort, for the wounded, the sickened, the weary, and those weighted down with sin, are always with us.

"And…please…bless her with happiness. Bless her with peace. And while not one of thine servants, as your daughter, please rain upon her head the affections of a loving Father in heaven.

"In the holy name of our Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ, Amen."

Never had a religious prayer or ceremony ever touched me as the one John murmured besides me. The reverent way he pleaded for me to a higher power gave to me more than any words or reasons John, Naru, or anyone else could have given me. And since I couldn't remember having a Father, and had been alone of parents for so long, the fact that he asked for anyone to be my loving Father…

When John rose and gifted me with a self-conscious, but satisfied smile, I had tears in my eyes for a whole other reason. He dried those as well. Then, as he leaned in, another warm spring breeze brushed through the room and he drew towards it, towards me. For a moment he hovered near, almost as though to leave a kiss on my head.

Then I blinked and he was striding to the door to unlock and open it.

"I'll go see if you can get released, if Naru hasn't yet." He hesitated in the doorway. "And keep my crucifix. As a gift. It's…very special, and I hope will help keep you safe."

"Are you sure?"

"Of course. I am here to serve, after all."

And with that, he left, leaving me with a vague impression that I had just missed something that still lingered in the hospital room.


	14. Evil Will Become

**I'm really sorry guys! I deleted the chapters announcing the quiz, but the reviews are still there! I thought it would get rid of them but it didn't! I swear I'm not a scheming poser. . I just like playing quiz games.**

 **On another note, I lied. There's one more chapter after this and THEN the epilogue. The 13th chapter ended up so big I chopped it in half.**

 **Please let me know what you think. Also, to our wonderful Guest reviewer: you don't know all the details yet. Yes, it's more than just autism, though severe autism could do that and more to a person. Mental illnesses are a bitch.**

Chapter 13

A nurse came back with a clean shirt and a rather terse Lin to drive me back to the hospital. I tugged on the red jacket (as the loss of blood made me cold and with a half-filled balloon for a head), that he handed to me after I'd sign the release form of the nurse.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

Lin made a displeased grunt before saying, "I don't particularly care for Oliver's impression that he commands me."

Which, in English, meant that Lin had wanted to go with Naru back to the old hospital as protection, but had been evaded and told to take me back instead.

"Did he head back with John?" I asked.

"With Ms. Hara."

Ah. How quaint. That short sentence served to feed a squirming green monster in my chest. I'd have to talk to him later about the appropriateness of being alone in a vehicle with a beautiful young woman who loved him when he had a girlfriend…with mild self-esteem issues.

"Where's John?"

"In the car." Which meant I should stop dawdling there asking stupid questions and get going so Lin could get back to Naru.

"Sorry! Sorry."

I had to sigh on the way out. Was I to end up in the hospital every month? Who knew something that was supposed to be insubstantial could do so much physical harm. Then again, it had been me who had bit myself. At the front desk I was handed some pain killers for the next few days, told to set up a date with my local practitioner to get the stitches removed, and set on my way to the back seat of Lin's car.

It wasn't till I saw John's pale face that I remembered. Skipping the open front seat, I slid into the back. John looked surprised, but smiled nonetheless.

"I left the front open for you," he said.

"Aren't you afraid of needles?" I asked. "When Ayako and you came into the hospital, you looked so nervous and she said it was because you were afraid of needles."

He let out a sheepish chuckle. "Oh, well…about that…it's a little more than needles, persay."

I waited. Lin pulled out of the parking lot as John fidgeted.

"Please don't laugh," he said, clenching his hands between his knees. "But just…seeing any kind of needle, be it syringe or IV or anything along the lines sort of…really gets me panicky."

But I didn't feel like laughing at all. "You mean…the whole entire time you were in my hospital room—"

He threw up his hands, cheeks reddening. "It's not that big of a deal, really."

"But I had an IV in my arm the whole time!"

"Well, I've had to put up with it before," he scratched the side of his cheek and switched to staring out the front of the car as his blush grew. "Priests are often needed in hospitals."

"So, then, why you left so quickly afterwards?"

He turned his face even further. "I sort of, um…didn't want to be sick on you…sorry."

Only then did I laugh, but it was more of relief and delight than mockery. Even if he brushed it off as no big deal, the fact that he braved such a phobia and anxiety in order to be there for me really said a lot. Not to mention a tiny part of me had feared he really had leaned in on the impulse to kiss me. That was a whole bag of maggots and worms I didn't want to open, which included, not only John's whole oath of celibacy, but a very moody Naru who probably didn't have the first clue of how to handle jealousy.

Though, as an ugly, old white truck trundled pass us on the freeway, I couldn't help but wonder if there had been anyone there for our medium ghost. If there had been, would she have gotten so bad? So twisted?

Was that really the reason she fought so hard to reach Masako and I?

But then, with someone so broken, did the part of her that sought for others even work anymore?

The sun had just set when we reached the old hospital. The half-moon already hung high, hovering over the hot orange remains of the day and casting one half of the squarish building into shadow.

Ayako met us at the entrance and held the door open for us, her painted lips thin.

"They're all down in the basement," she said.

"Huh?" I squawked.

Lin actually started running, slipping past Ayako and into the poorly lit hall beyond. John looked from Ayako to me apprehensively.

"What's so bad about the basement?" he asked.

"I don't know," said Ayako. "To be honest it's the cleanest and best preserved part of this place. But Naru insists on holding a séance there—because we haven't been fighting tooth and nail to keep spirits out the past day and night, oh no. It's that stupid driftwood god all over again."

"There aren't any signs of rats or spiders down there," I said, falling into place at Ayako's side as we set off at a brisk walk. "Not even cobwebs. It's weird, don't you remember that closet I opened up earlier that was full of rats?"

"And I've seen enough spiders to want to just bomb this place and be done with it," said Ayako.

"Definitely weird," agreed John.

"Can spirits do that?" I asked.

"Well, that's too vague a question," said John. "There are ghosts that are strong enough to drain the energy from those living around them, but I'm not sure as to scaring off living creatures. And if so, I'd think we would have felt it ourselves and avoided the place."

"But wasn't that what we were feeling?" I asked as a tension I hadn't realized had been twisting in my gut the past few days returned. "No one wanted to go into the basement. We all thought it was creepy. But we're use to that feeling, we're use to scary places and haunts, so why would we listen to it?"

John and Ayako stared at me. By some unspoken agreement, we picked up our speed to a jog. The South Hall slipped past us, and out of the corner of my eye I noticed the darkness which had become the East Hall. The West Hall, which we ran through, held the same half-flickering, yellowed light.

"How could a spirit get past our wards like that anyways?" panted Ayako as we came to the North Hall, where the nurse's office waited for us.

Suddenly, John stopped. We nearly stopped along with him, but as soon as we did he had picked up and ran past us. We called out to him, but soon enough we were gathered at the top of the stairs in the doorway hidden at the back of the nurse's office. At the foot of the stairs was Naru, back lighted by the weaker, warm glow of candles.

"Just who I needed," he said, and his eyes fell on John.

"Masako…" he panted. "She isn't…?"

Poor John had paled to the point his freckles looked like mud splattered across his nose. His fists were clenched at his sides and his gaze was glued to the black figure at the bottom of the stairs.

"I'm sure you can guess," said Naru. "Let's not have the indecency to say it out loud." Naru's eyes found me and Ayako. "Didn't I tell you to wait outside with Mai?"

I flinched. The tension in the air was thick enough to snap. "Ugh! Naru, you jerk, you're doing it again! Leaving me out of the loop, you know I hate that!"

"And I'll tell you later." His eyes narrowed. "Go outside."

Like hell. I stomped my foot. "I'm already involved, Naru, if you send us outside that girl's going to find me anyways. She got past wards, she's going to get past a stupid old wall."

His expression sharpened. "Oh? And you know this?"

"Yes." As sure as I ever did. And as I reached to that voice deep within my breast that spoke these truths, it whispered another. "And it wouldn't matter where I go. She reached me at the hospital as well. How do you think I saw those things? She called to me, as she called to Gene. It can't be ignored."

The words didn't sound like my own. Now everyone was looking at me, including John, who suddenly looked pained, even to biting his lip.

Naru, however, ducked his chin, sufficiently hiding his face from us.

"John, get your things," he said, and disappeared back into the basement.

After an exchanged glance, Ayako and I took the stairs down two at a time as John ran off. At the foot, the one ordinary, dust-free hallway had been transformed by candle light. There were no tables or chairs, just Masako sitting on the floor, dressed in a simple, elegant navy kimono. A single candle burned before her, reflecting in her large, dark eyes.

The impression of a waiting animal flash through my head, and I shook it off.

Takigawa and Lin stood on either side of Masako; Takigawa in his robes, hands and prayer beads ready; Lin grim and erect. Naru stood silhouetted by the candle light before her. Charms papered the walls.

"Mary," he said. "You are cornered. Leave or be destroyed."

The moment my foot hit the bottom of the stairs, Masako's dark eyes snapped to my face. Her pupils had gone so wide the iris had vanished. Her lips curled.

Without warning, Masako's hand flashed out to a candle and chucked it at me. I stepped to the side just in time for it to thwack against my shoulder and shatter on the linoleum floor, splattering me with hot wax.

In that same moment Lin had her restrained, and Monk had cried, "Naru!"

But Naru stopped him with a hand. "Unless you can exorcize the spirit without hurting her, wait for John."

"But you already have her name, why can't Lin just do it?"

"Because if I'm wrong…" he turned to me. "You all right?"

I opened my mouth to respond, but Masako—or Mary—shrieked over me.

"SMALL! Pissy bitch, think you're so big—SMALL! I'll fill you with skinny worms till your legs tear apart and _your guts fall out!_ "

Ayako caught me in my retreat, pulling me behind her, but that only seemed to enrage whatever possessed Masako more.

"CUT YOU! CUT YOU! SEXTANT! WHORE!"


	15. To Face the Dark

**And now, all questions will be answered**

Chapter 14

"Lin," Naru snapped.

But it was Takigawa who had reacted, taking a wad of cloth from his sleeves and stuffing it into her mouth. The veins in her neck bulged with the force of her scream and her eyes popped.

My knees had buckled together. "N-Naru...it's-it's her."

"You recognize those words?"

"Yes…the worms…in my gut, deep in me…"

"Stop," said Ayako, pushing down on my shoulders. "Don't think about it Mai."

I ignored her. "Naru, what's going on? Why is she in Masako? Can't you explain even a little while we wait for John?"

He hesitated, his own dark eyes glinting not unlike Masako's, but after meeting mine for but a glance he folded his arms.

"The worms are probably her symbol, not just for innards, but for the penis. Mary Pommel, who was submitted to the hospital for a blow to the head that had knocked her unconscious, had been born with what we now know as a high-functioning autism, which explains why she has favored this basement so much. With all those people going through upstairs, the lack of stimuli here would have been comforting. She had been brought here to calm her fits when she was alive, for after the blow, her frontal lobe was damaged and her conditioned far worsened. But what truly made this girl before you was how she was raised. Mental conditions can make or break a person depending on how they are raised, and this girl, well…rape does interesting things to a girl. Sexual intercourse reaches us on all levels, and approached violently can usually have two outcomes," he put down his arms and slid his foot to the side to steady himself. Not an inch of him shook. "She either gains extreme distrust in men and general intimacy…or she becomes a nymphophiliac. Combine that with her already existing mental condition and the blow—"

The cloth fell loose with a string of spittle. "VIRGIN!"

As Takigawa and Lin worked together to wrestle the cloth back into Masako's mouth, Naru turned back to me, grim and cold.

"I know you pity her, Mai," he said softly. "But I can guarantee that she hates you with every fiber of what's left of her soul after she forced herself against so many wards."

"Wh-why?" I asked.

"Well, you see, it wasn't the nine-cuts that protected Masako that time. Yes, this girl was initially prone to possess you two first because you were both mediums, but also because you both appeared to be the opposite of what she was: a virgin, which, as you can tell…"

"Wait, hold on," Ayako had caught on. "Why didn't she ever try attacking me?"

Naru gave her a droll stare and just continued. "Mai, the reason she targeted you and attacked you isn't because you're a medium and the only one she could reach. It was because you are the only female virgin, and a well-loved one at that. You are salt to her wounds. It only took her a moment to realize Masako was not, so she focused all her attention on you."

"But…but then why did she—she wanted to be the wall, how is being a nympho have to do with—"

"You are hearing her from the wrong perspective. I wrote down your quotes, word for word. She didn't want to _be_ small, she didn't want to _be_ a wall. It was what she thought she had _become_ —what she was both afraid of and needed. Recall the words 'no breasts, no hips, no mouth, no nose,' most of those body parts have sexual connotations. The symbolic attack on your mind to make you experience layers of violent rape, the biting of your wrists, the direct attempts to destroy your well-being and mental constitution—she hates you, Mai. You are what she could never be. You are whole, loved, and pure. She," he looked back at Masako, coldness melting to grimness. "Is not. Even in death, as she was orphaned and friendless."

"But that isn't her fault—"

"No, but she choose to embrace her torture, she choose to defile herself, she choose to attack you—"

"Stop it!" I cried. "Please, Naru, she lived through hell! Of course it made her into this!"

John returned puffing, robes on and a new, smaller crucifix about his neck and bible in hand. Naru gestured him to his spot on the other side of the candles and moved to my side.

"You could have grown like her," he said in an undertone. "We all could have. All of us experience horrors and tragedies in our life, all of us are abused at some point. But whether it makes or breaks us is up to us."

"But you said she had autism—"

"Which inhibits your ability to communicate with people and manage stimuli," he said like a cut of a blade. "Are you saying autism affects your ability to choose right or wrong? That autism makes you, no, forces you to be evil? Mai…part of accepting the good in this world is also accepting that there is evil, and evil isn't the cackling Saturday morning cartoon villain it's painted out to be. Evil is always sad, pathetic, injured, and hateful of those who remind them of that."

Masako was thrashing about in Lin's arms now. Her eyes had widened to the point I could see her bloodshot whites.

"John, exorcize to destroy a demon."

He flinched and looked back wildly. "A-a demon?"

"Demons are but fallen members of God's children, right?"

"R..right…" he turned back, turning his book. When he reached into his pocket, however, it wasn't to grab his holy water, but to take up a larger, silver cross.

"Lin, hand her over to Takigawa. We will try her name first, but she may not respond to you well. Ayako, take Mai out. She shouldn't watch this."

Ayako's hand fell on my shoulder, but I threw it off.

"How was she able to get past the wards, then?" I demanded, if not for more time to think of some other solution—any other solution. "Why was she not exorcized from the beginning? Why do you need to trap her in Masako like this?"

"Oh, she does have some level of the powers of a medium, but not enough to draw attention, which means you're far more powerful than you think…or she used Gene as a conductor. I lean towards the latter."

Gene? But how—that didn't matter. John had already approach to add the level of holy water from his other pocket, which hissed on contact with Masako, leaving burn marks on her skin. I flinched, but Ayako squeezed my arm with a, 'she'll be okay.' Takigawa threw his beads about his head and settled in to take over the restraining of tiny Masako.

"And the exorcisms?"

"She was too strong then, but shoving your soul against so many wards weakens a soul, like a hand to fire. John should be able to take care of her now, if we can pin her down, and since her hate for you moves her to murder, Masako agreed to take on the spirit. Should we have never tried to exorcize her, she might have never noticed anyone and grown more and more warped."

And that would have to be a thought for later, as John had begun to recite scriptures I had never heard, scriptures I couldn't understand. There were words of strange beasts with eyes, of fallen angels, of hell and God's final judgment. Even as Ayako pulled me back up the stairs, I trembled at the abrasive words. John's prayers had always been so kind, even lovely. Just earlier that day he had prayed to a God he could ask to bless me as a Father to his beloved daughter. Could this really be right?

I tugged on Ayako, eyes burning.

"Mai, please—"

"This can't be right. There has to be some other way—"

"Look, believe it or not, this happens in purifying a place. Demons can't be purified, they have to be cast out."

"But she's a person! A girl with—with beautiful blue eyes! Blue eyes that could make you cry!" I was weeping now and too weak to fight Ayako's coaxing over the last few steps. "And she isn't being cast out, she's being destroyed."

"What do you think happens to something that is destroyed? Nothing ever truly ceases to exist. You should know that by now. Being separated from all contact is destruction."

"But what's going to happen to her now? Will it hurt? Is she going to be okay?"

Ayako's face broke and her eyes crinkled with pity. "Oh, Mai…"

Like a mother leading a small child away from a much wanted toy, she pulled me out of the nursing office and down the West Hall. The lights flickered violently, going black at one point, but then flickered back on. I hiccupped at the sudden bright weightlessness I felt, as though a great weight of earth had been lifted from the air and I could finally breathe. But rather than breathe, I sobbed all the harder.

"She's gone," I wailed. "She's gone!"

"Mai, she tried to kill you—she hated you."

"But she was in so much pain, Ayako. I felt it. I felt it."

And because she hated me so much, I was the only one who had.


	16. Epilogue

**I was planning on posting this up on the weekend, but then I got a reject from a literary agent saying that my main character was just not believable (probably because she's too nice for her own good), and it discouraged and depressed me so bad I just gave up.**

 **So screw it. If less people see this because I didn't put it up on the weekend, who cares. I'll post the preview for the next book after this. BLAH.**

Epilogue

When Masako came back to base, supported by Takigawa, I threw my arms around her neck and held her tight until she tapped my arm for release. I made tea for everyone in a sort of desperate fervor, then sat and stared at my own cup until Naru told me it was time to pick up.

Everyone split up. I headed back with Naru and Lin, and, as usual, there wasn't much talk in the van. We reached Tokyo in the early morning and I vaguely remembered Naru coaxing me out of the van and up the stairs to my tiny studio apartment with gentle squeezes of his hands. When I woke up it was in my own bed, with sunlight streaming across my futon and my tiny kitchen…alone. I don't know why one part of me had expected Naru to stay with me, but perhaps it had been because of a dream I had had where his brother had sat by my bedside, saying nothing much, other than to close my eyes and rest; there wouldn't be anywhere to wonder to tonight.

I had showered, dressed, and just gotten my stirred eggs into a frying pan when my doorbell rang. It only took three or so steps to the door.

Naru, dressed in an unorthodox blue shirt (still black pants and shoes, you couldn't expect him to do the impossible), greeted me.

"Can I come in?" he sounded almost…wary.

"Yeah?"

He took off his shoes and eyed my futon still sprawled out between my TV and beaten up loveseat. Without a word he walked in, got down, and started to work on rolling up my futon into the closet.

"What are you doing?"

"What does it look like?"

I remembered my omelet then and jumped back to the popping oil and eggs. It was only then that I realized I had forgotten to mix in the rice and groaned. I didn't have rice. I had been planning to buy some on the way back home. Money money money money….

I heard the rustle of fabric and the clack of the closet door behind me.

"If you'd called me ahead of time I would have picked up. Does leaving stuff out bother you?"

"No. It's not like you have enough stuff to make much of a mess. I'm…"

As he hesitated, I tipped out my omelet onto a plate and asked, "Want some?"

"No thanks, I already ate."

Of course. "Tea?"

"No."

Okay, that made me stop. I dropped the pan into the sink and turned on him with my arms folded. "Okay, what's up?"

His eyes did that quick little flick as he stopped himself from averting his eyes, because Naru never avoiding looking someone in the eye. It would show weakness, or, at least, nervousness. I didn't even know if Naru knew he did that.

"Aren't you…angry?" he asked.

"No. I thought it was usually pretty obvious when I'm angry."

"It is."

"Then why are you asking?"

"Because…" another pause, another little invisible eye flick. "You should be. Usually you'd be furious with me after forcing you out like that. And my methods had distressed you."

"But it was necessary, wasn't it?"

"Well, I wouldn't have done so unless it was."

I had to smile at that. I could see more minute signs of his hidden apprehension. He hid it so well. He purposefully kept his shoulders back, eyes on mine, hands loose. He was very good—except for how still he held. He almost didn't breathe. Not even a finger twitched. I could have laughed at how hard he tried.

God forbid he should ever catch on to how much I saw.

"Is that why you put my futon away for me?" I asked with a smirk.

Oh yeah. There went his ears. "It's common knowledge that in appeasing a woman helping her clean never fails."

"And dare I ask if the blue shirt…?"

The pinkness was growing. He flicked his hair out of his eyes, all coolness, and stuffed his hands in his pockets. "Well, since you're obviously fine, I guess I have no further reason to be here. There is still paperwork I need to finish on the case."

Before he could reach the door, I stepped in front of it. He glared at me, but I just smiled.

"You always try to retreat when you're embarrassed," I said.

He didn't say anything. His glare might have gone a bit more icy, but the brush of pink across his nose didn't leave. He held my gaze valiantly for a few seconds before giving in and dropping his gaze. He didn't try to move or try to persuade me to. He just stood there, eyes on the floor, hands in his pockets, the tips of his ears poking out from his dark hair.

I drew a bit closer. "Naru? Are…you okay?"

"I'm fine."

I ducked down to catch his eye again, and he blinked in annoyance.

"Are you expecting something? I told you, Mai, I can't read your mind."

"Oh, but you do so well at that. Why can't you do so now?"

"Because I haven't the slightest clue."

"But you want to know?"

He drew his shoulders up, then forced them down. "I would like to know, yes. I don't entirely believe you are fine. You weren't fine last night, and I don't know if you have even accepted what happened yet."

I considered that, going back to retrieve my omelet. After my first bite I said, "You're right. I didn't accept it, at first. I thought the whole world was falling apart. Good, evil; mercy and justice. But…it didn't take me long to realize how I thought was childish. Because you're right, Naru," he almost flinched as I turned it back to him. "Evil isn't the cackling villain who wants to take over the world. It isn't the man eating monster. It's sad, it's selfish, it's horrible and pathetic; in short, it's suffering. That's why it's evil. I mean, what would those boys who raped her have said to me if I asked them why they did it? They'd probably have a seriously screwed up sob story to tell me too. There could have been loads of abuse, neglect, and God knows what that they'd use to excuse themselves, and, yeah, I'd pity them too, because they're still human. Evil hurts us, twists us, and it can break us to do the same to others.

"I just wish there had been someone there for her. Someone that could have saved her."

Naru blinked at me, then turned his head. A slow, soft smile, hardly one at all, stole across his face along with my breath.

"You are so good," he said, and nothing else. No smartass words, no eloquent speech.

Feeling the heat crawl up to my face, I stuffed my mouth with egg to avoid looking at him. In no time at all my breakfast was finished and I turned to wash my dishes. While I wasn't looking, he came up behind me to wrap his arms tight about my waist and bury his face into my hair. He stayed there, seeming perfectly content, as I scrubbed away.

When the last plate was set in the rack, he finally spoke. "Do you need ice cream today?"

I chuckled. "Another ice cream date? I don't know, I might spend up all my luck points with you."

"It doesn't have to be ice cream. I'd just like you to get some sun."

I twisted in his arms to smile up at him. "If it's with you, I'll turn brown as dirt if you wanted."

His gaze and expression had softened considerably, almost to vulnerability. I knew these moments. They only came when we were alone, and he let down his drawbridge to his fortress of pride so I could visit. He was leaning in, probably to kiss me—but I still had two handfuls of suds.

He jerked back with glorious bubble side burns, startled. I only wished I had a camera as I roared with laughter.

"On anyone else that'd only be a giggle!" I cried. "But the faces you make! Oh man, if anyone on the team knew—"

My sentence was gut off by a gasp as Naru flung me over his shoulder like a potato sack. I shrieked with alarm.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry! Don't kill me!"

"Good Lord, Mai, really?"

"I'm gonna diiiieee!"

And for the first time, I heard Naru let out one of the most beautiful sounds: he laughed, big and full and loud. Not a snide, dry chuckle, or even his usual humorless laugh. But real, happy laughter.

He hefted me across my apartment and dropped me onto my sofa, me wailing death curses all the way. Before I'd even stopped bouncing on the springs, he was atop of me, smiling down at me with remains of bubbles in his hair and side lighted by the late morning light from the window. In that moment, I thought I'd had the breath knocked out of me. How could anyone be so gorgeous?

"Mai," he said.

And then he came down to kiss me as he hadn't in a long time; slow, deep, and with his mouth dancing in time with my own. At some point he lowered the rest of his weight atop of me, pressing me into the cushions till it didn't matter that the couch wasn't long enough to stop my legs from poking off the armrest, it was going to swallow me whole. Heat started up low in my stomach and we started to breathe through one another; hot, humid breaths.

He slowed and eased off of me. I hadn't realized my hands had twisted up into his shirt and quickly let go. Nor had I noticed when he had dug his hand into my hair. His eyes had turn bright, his lips and face flushed, and his breath puffed fast across my face.

"Would you…would you ever marry me?" he asked.

"Huh?"

Then, in an instant, the fervor snapped out from him. He withdrew off the couch, straightening his shirt, smoothing his hair. No bubbles had survived.

"Sorry. I…I got carried away, I shouldn't…it's probably a bad idea if we're alone in your apartment. If we're to get ice cream, we should get on our way, I really do still have a report to fill out, and tardiness was never in me."

My heart beat a drunken sort of waltz across my chest. My head still toddled waywardly from the overstimulation of his kiss and laughter. I couldn't say I had ever before experience something so…a feeling so…

For the first time, I thought, 'if there is a heaven…'

"Marry you?" I breathed.

"Come on, Mai. Get up, or I'm leaving. No free ice cream." He had already reached the door and was tapping his feet into his shoes.

"But did you mean that?"

"Mean what?"

He knew very well what I meant. His obvious evasiveness sent a small chill across the golden glow in my chest. "Would you…really want to marry me?"

He glanced over his shoulder. "What's with the sad voice? Do you not like the idea?"

"I just can't fathom you wanting to marry someone like me, I mean…marriage is sort of a lifetime deal, and you could…" I thought of Masako, the epitome of springtime princess in her colorful kimonos, and couldn't help but wonder how she had lost her virginity at such a young age. Then, as though my brain was intent on coming up with the worse scenario, I remembered watching Masako holding to Naru's arm on their way to dinner, and the talk I had intended to have with him about being alone in a car with a girl not me. In my tipsy, emotional drunk fear I suddenly asked, "Are you a virgin?"

There was dead silence. As the silence dragged on, I had to look up, confused and all measures of anxious—

To see Naru giving me his greatest 'you are a moron' look ever.

"Did you really just ask me that?"

I fidgeted. "Um…yes?"

He groaned, as he often did when he couldn't fathom how to live through my stupidity. Then he turned with a hand on his hip.

"First time we kissed, I kissed your teeth. You're the only girl I've ever kissed, period. Don't make me repeat that again, because it's the truth and if you even start on the whole 'you can have sex without kissing,' I'll be thrown into a real fury. And so we can get over this…moronic air of whatever the crap I just let loose, I dream like a complete imbecile of marrying you—you'd think me the most stupid of poor besotted fools with some of the things I-But, since I'm NOT an idiot, I'm not going to ask my seventeen year old girlfriend that, and I'm not going to become the sappy sad main character of a country song when you eventually wake up and find someone more capable of making you happy. Now, can we drop the subject and leave, because I'm seriously regretting coming here at all."

…No he didn't. Despite his eyes flicking like mad in his nerves, the too-still posture, and the pink flush to his face, he couldn't regret it. Not after I had heard him laugh like that.

And it was just all too _cute_.

Fears forgotten, I buried my hands back into that golden heaven and breathed it in deep.

Naru's gaze flickered to me with apparent intent to just see if I was going to leave or not, but stopped. "What's with that look?"

"I don't know, what do I look like?"

"Like you…" he raised his head with all the caution of a soldier above the lip of a trench. Another first came with what could only be wonder widened his eyes and loosened his jaw.

Before he could say anything more, I jumped up and slipped on the sandals I had left on the side of the couch. Fluffing my hair with my fingers, I grabbed his hand and with the other took up my keys.

"Ice cream, you said? Your treat?"

With that, I pulled out my speechless boyfriend into the warm spring light.


	17. Sequel is now out! (Gang)

**Btw, folks: Gang, the sequel to Plain (aka, this story), is now out! Go check it oooouuut!**

Or don't... I'm not trying to push you or anything...


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